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 1100

District of Dannevirke 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
11	5 July 1893	Walter Henry Batchelor Janet Ellen Baillie	Walter Henry Batchelor Janet Helen Baillie 💍 1893/2841	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 22	Rangitata Manchester	6 months 6 years	Residence of Adam Baillie, Manchester	93/2891	3 July 1893	John Dickson
12	24 July 1893	John Angus McAskell Finetta Gray		Bachelor Spinster	Baker	29 24	Dannevirke Dannevirke	18 years 24 years	Episcopalian Church, Dannevirke	93/2641	24 July 1893	Mr. Eugene Gillam
13	9 August 1893	Leonard Rooke Mary Ackroyd	Leonard Rooke Mary Ackroyd 💍 1893/2530	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 28	Geraldine Dannevirke	2 years 28 years	Episcopalian Church, Geraldine	93/2640	9 August 1893	Mr. E. Gillam
14	14 August 1893	William Henry Driffield Jane Owen Dyson	William Henry Trilford Jane Owen Dyson 💍 1893/2529	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 20	Dannevirke Dannevirke	2 years 20 years	Registry Office, Dannevirke	93/2639	14 August 1893	Percy Paget White
15	15 August 1893	Thomas Goodwin Elizabeth Moore	Thomas Goodwin Elisabeth Moore 💍 1893/2532	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 21	Dannevirke Dannevirke	2 weeks 3 days	Roman Catholic Church, Dannevirke	93/2642	15 August 1893	Louis Fauvel
16	28 August 1893	Nilsom Thomas Daisy Ann Hooper	Milson Thomas Delcy Ann Hooper 💍 1893/2842	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	31 24	Dannevirke Dannevirke	8 years 10 years	Residence of John Hooper, Dannevirke	93/2892	28 August 1893	John Dellow
17	13 September 1893	Frederick Morris Annie Sweet	Frederick Morris Annie Sweet 💍 1893/2843	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	30 24	Dannevirke Dannevirke	14 years 12 years	Residence of Mr. Sweet, Dannevirke	93/2893	13 September 1893	John Dellow

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).