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 755

District of Gore 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
1	1 June 1893	William Finlay Margaret Mary Hogan	William Finlay Margaret May Hogan 💍 1893/1982	Bachelor Spinster	Stable Keeper	29 21	Gore Gore	18 months 2 yrs	Presbyterian Manse, Gore	93/1945		1 June 1893	Rev J A Asher, Presbyterian Clergyman, Gore
3	13 June 1893	William Voigt Mary Voigt	William Voigt Mary Voigt 💍 1893/1984	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 20	Gore Gore	19 years 6 months	Residence of William Voigt, Gore	93/1947	No person in Colony authorised to give consent	17 June 1893	Rev J A Asher, Presbyterian Clergyman, Gore
5	5 May 1893	William Winn Eliza Pollard	William Winn Eliza Pollard 💍 1893/1985	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	38 22	Gore Gore	12 months 3 years	English Church, Gore	93/1948		5 May 1893	Rev T H Stanley, English Church Clergyman, Gore
16	14 June 1893	James Hellier Alice Daphne Burrows	James Hellier Alice Dagmar Burrows 💍 1893/1980	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 26	Gore Gore	10 yrs 7 yrs	Residence of Mrs Burrows at Jacobstown, Gore	93/1943		16 June 1893	Rev J H Lewis, Congregational Clergyman, Gore
20	9 May 1893	William Stewart Elizabeth Reavie	William Stewart Elizabeth Raeside 💍 1893/1983 William Stewart Anne Fraser Gemmill 💍 1893/2808	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	44 20	Riversdale Riversdale	8 years 6 months	Presbyterian Church, Gore	93/1946	No person in Colony authorised to give consent	3 June 1893	Rev J A Asher, Presbyterian Clergyman, Gore
22	10 May 1893	Charles Lawrence Cluttock Bridget Theresa O'Connor	Charles Laurence Chittock Bridget Theresa O'Connor 💍 1893/1977	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 23	Gore Gore	14 yrs 9 yrs	R.C. Presbyterian	93/1940		22 May 1893	Rev W J Newport, R.C. Clergyman, Gore
24	24 April 1893	William Wilson May Frances Wallis	William Wilson Mary Frances Wallis 💍 1893/1978	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	28 20	Gore Gore	4 days 15 yrs	at residence of Mr Wallis, Gore	93/1941	Isabella Wallis, mother of May F Wallis	24 April 1893	Rev William Tinsley, Wesleyan Clergyman, Gore
30	11 May 1893	Ernest Edward Wallis Charlotte McKenzie	Ernest Edward Wallis Charlotte McKenzie 💍 1893/1981	Bachelor Spinster	Fellmonger	21 20	Gore Gore	14 yrs 7 yrs	Residence of D. M. McKenzie, Gore	93/1944	D. M. McKenzie, Father of Charlotte McKenzie	30 May 1893	Rev J A Asher, Presbyterian Clergyman, Gore

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).