Intentions to Marry, 1893

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840405, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole and Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 6 2025.

A few pages are missing due to focus issues.

Page 753

District of Quarter ending 30 June 1893

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
469	4 April 1893	Robert Bayster Catharine Upcott		Bachelor Spinster	Coppersmith None	44 years 42 years	Mc Millan Flat Mc Millan Flat	4 days 3 months	At Trinity Church, Lawrence	93/1936		25 April 1893	Rev. S. P. Beaumont, Anglican Church of England
470	5 April 1893	Walter Thomas Sale Catharine Phipps	Walter Thomas Eaton Catharine Shier 💍 1893/1998	Bachelor Spinster	Miner None	34 years 16 years	Waipori Waipori	6 years 2 years	At St. Stephen's Church at Lawrence	93/1938	Edmund Sale, father	5 April 1893	H. G. Sale, Registrar
471	11 May 1893	John Douglas Horrie Margaret Ann Cumming	John Douglas Howie Margaret Ann Summers 💍 1893/1994 John Douglas Ritchie Margaret Jane McKerrow 💍 1893/4153	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	30 years 22 years	Lawrence Munroe Gully	4 days 12 months	At House of Mr. Horrie at Munroe Gully	93/1934		11 May 1893	The Rev. W. J. Thomas, Wesleyan Minister
472	23 May 1893	John Goldsmith Alma Williams	John Goldsmit Elva Amelia Williams 💍 1893/1995	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor House Keeper	25 years 25 years	Tuapeka West Tuapeka West	4 days 2 months	At House of Mr. Thomas Williams at Tuapeka West	93/1935		23 May 1893	The Rev. J. G. Thomas, Wesleyan Minister
473	21 June 1893	Charles Bennett Jane Brook	Charles Bennet Jane Brook 💍 1893/1997	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer House Keeper	44 years 44 years	Drum Flat Drum Flat	3 days 5 years	At the House of Mr. Philip Brook at Drum Flat	93/1937		21 June 1893	The Rev. J. G. Beaumont, Anglican Church of England
474	23 June 1893	George Leslie Hannah Gourley	George Leslie Hannah Crowley 💍 1893/1976	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier None	29 years 26 years	Lawrence Tuapeka Flat	At Lawrence 3 months	At Roman Catholic Church at Lawrence	93/1939		23 June 1893	The Rev. Patrick Cleary, Roman Catholic Priest
475	30 June 1893	Alexander Hill Catharine O'Driscoll	Alexander Hill Catherine O'Driscoll 💍 1893/2698	Bachelor Spinster	Miner House Keeper	33 years 26 years	Blue Spur Gabriel's Gully	12 months 2 years	At Roman Catholic Church at Lawrence	93/2737		30 June 1893	The Rev. Patrick Cleary, Roman Catholic Priest

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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What is an Intention to Marry?

The 1854 Marriage Act required Pakeha settlers (and later Maori) to register their intention to marry from 1855. The resulting Notices of intention to marry were sent by the district registrars to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages and bound into large volumes, each containing a year of notices. These registers were eventually deposited with Archives New Zealand.

What information does an ItM record?

A typical Intention to Marry notice records:

the bride and groom's full names
occupation of the groom (and sometimes the bride)
their ages
district where the marriage would take place
how long they had resided in the district
Where the marriage would take place (eg, a specific church)
Who would officiate the marriage (eg, a minister)
The date of the notice and also a date when the certificate was issued. Marriages had to take place within 3 months, and usually occurred within a week or so of the certificate date.
If one of the parties was under 21, a parent who consented to their marriage was usually specified

These details can provide clues for genealogical and historical research. Knowing the date and district makes it easier to look for wedding notices in Papers Past, and the amount of time that the parties had resided in a district can offer clues to whether a person was born in NZ, or when they immigrated.

However, finding individual records in the Intentions to Marry registers was typically a slow and manual process, usually requiring an in-person visit to Archives NZ's Wellington office (during limited opening hours) and using a handwritten card catalogue index to look up individual names.

Eight years of the registers had been digitised by Archives NZ prior to 2024, but even these digital versions required the use of a manual index and usually examining several pages to locate specific records.

What is the Intentions to Marry Project?

This project aims to transcribe the New Zealand Intentions to Marry registers (from 1855 to 1925) with the assistance of new technology (AI), making the records freely available and easily searchable.

The ITM records have also been cross-referenced with the registered marriages at DIA Births, Deaths and Marriages, where possible (a small fraction of the recorded intentions to marry did not become a registered marriage).

Currently we have almost all records between 1855 and 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

The project is led by Luke Howison, a web developer who made the free genealogical research search tool NZ Ancestor Search Helper and Archway-style Collections Search. There are also some wonderful volunteers assisting with digitising the registers.

Can I volunteer to help?

Yes, you can! You can sign up to correct errors in the transcribed records and match ITMs with registered marriages.

I am also looking for Wellington-based volunteers to help me digitise more years of the registers. I can provide lighting equipment and a 'clicker' (to trigger your phone's camera).

How is the transcription done?

There are several steps to digitising and transcribing the records:

Digitising the registers (taking clean, straight, high-quality photos)
Processing the digitised pages by straightening, cropping and sharpening the images
Transcribing each page with a combination of AI tools
Matching each ITM with a registered marriage when possible
Human verification of the transcribed information

The main LLM (AI) used are the Google Gemini Pro and Flash models, which have excellent 'Vision' capabilities, and a generous free tier.

Archives NZ has released the register years they have digitised (1865-69, 1872, 1874 and 1880) under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

The Intention to Marry registers (up to 1925) are more than 100 years old, so their Crown Copyright has expired, putting them in the public domain. This also applies to any 'mechanical reproductions' (eg, pictures or photocopies) of their content without substantial alteration.

The transcribed records on this website are released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license, which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes, while giving credit to the creator (NZ Intentions to Marry Project).