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 1072

District of Christ Church 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
320	21 September 1893	Willie Llewellyn Heaven Mary Florence Isappoint	William Llewellyn Heaven Mary Florence Box 💍 1893/2744	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	26 26	Christchurch Christchurch	10 days 2 months	House of Mr. Heaven, Manamore Road	93/2584	21 September 1893	Rev. J. Standring, Baptist
321	22 September 1893	Francis Coles Clara Main	Francis Coles Clara Main 💍 1893/2742	Bachelor Spinster	Stationer	41 38	Christchurch Christchurch	7 years 30 years	House of Mr. C. Bearing, Oxford Terrace	93/2582	22 September 1893	Rev. W. Barrenberg, Wesleyan
322	25 September 1893	Augustus Cameron Catherine McFarlane	Angus Cameron Catherine McFarlane 💍 1893/3209	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Servant	33 35	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 4 days	Presbyterian Church, Colombo St.	93/2562	25 September 1893	Presbyterian
323	25 September 1893	Francis Corley Edith Holmes	Frank Corley Edith Holmes 💍 1893/2391	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	21 21	Christchurch Christchurch	20 years 21 years	Registrars Office	93/2547	25 September 1893	Registrar of Marriages, J. M. Maullesson
324	26 September 1893	George Reynolds Griffin Caroline Lucy Howard	George Reynolds Griffin Caroline Lucy Howard 💍 1893/2443	Bachelor Spinster	Manufacturer	34 21	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 21 years	Registrars Office	93/2548	26 September 1893	Registrar of Marriages, J. M. Maullesson
325	26 September 1893	Herbert George Stringer Mary Waters	Herbert George Stringer Emmeline Mary Walters 💍 1893/2457	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	21 23	Christchurch Christchurch	21 years 4 years	St. Lukes Church	93/2557	26 September 1893	Ven. Arch. Lingard, Church of England
326	27 September 1893	Alexander Forcythe Annie Hughes	Alexander Forsythe Annie Hughes 💍 1893/3875 Alexander Owen Jones Jessie Hughes 💍 1893/4068	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Tailoress	24 21	Christchurch Christchurch	17 years 21 years	House of Alfred Gibson, Perth St.	93/2569	27 September 1893	Rev. J. Dawson, Methodist

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).