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 943

District of Napier Quarter ending 30 September 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
72	14 August 1893	Waller Greening Christiana Attomina Maria Birkegaard Peters	Walter Greening Christiana Ottomina Maria Birkegaard Peters 💍 1893/2986	Bachelor Spinster	Station hand Domestic	24 22	Rissington Rissington	4 years 6 months	The Cathedral at Napier	93/2990		14 August 1893	Rev. DeBerdt Hovell, Church of England
73	14 August 1893	Thomas Moye Thornton Francis Mary Cowlrick	Thomas Moye Thornton Frances Mary Cowbrick 💍 1893/4070	Bachelor Spinster	Coachsmith	32 22	Napier Napier	3 years 2 years	The Cathedral at Napier	93/2989		14 August 1893	Rev. de Berdt Hovell, Church of England
74	14 August 1893	William Richard Taylor Matilda Hannah Carnell	William Richard Taylor Matilda Hannah Carnell 💍 1893/2197	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	33 26	Port Ahuriri Port Ahuriri	7 years 6 months	Residence of Mrs Gatlin, Port Ahuriri	93/2287		14 August 1893	Rev. C. Dean, Church of England.
75	14 August 1893	Andrew Bisset Martin Jane Burrows	Andrew Bassett Martin Jane Burrows 💍 1893/2987	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	24 18	Port Ahuriri Western Spit	5 years 1 month	The Cathedral at Napier	93/2991	No one in N.Z. having authority to give consent	18 August 1893	Rev. DeBerdt Hovell, Church of England.
76	18 August 1893	Joseph Oliver Jones Griffin Emma Harpham	Joseph Oliver Jones Griffin Emma Harpham 💍 1893/4019	Bachelor Spinster	Salesman	29 25	Napier Taradale	7 years 25 years	All Saints church Taradale	93/2281		18 August 1893	Rev. A. P. Clarke, Church of England
77	21 August 1893	Richard Eddy Rosetta Bailey	Richard Eddy Rosetta Bailey 💍 1893/2482	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Domestic	27 20	Port Ahuriri Hastings	5 1/2 years 4 Months	St Matthews Church Hastings	93/2272	John Bailey, Hastings, father	21 August 1893	Rev. John Hobbs, Church of England
78	23 August 1893	Ralph Gardiner Emma Amelia Cuthbert	Ralph Gardiner Emma Amelia Cuthbert 💍 1893/2864	Widower Widow	Engineer Dressmaker	63 51	Wairoa Napier	29 years 3 Weeks	Residence of J. R. Gardiner, Napier	93/2942		23 August 1893	Rev. J. C. Paterson, Presbyterian

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).