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 1161

District of Severcarpee 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
73	29 August 1893	Samuel Roff Hannah Keys	Samuel Roff Hannah Keys 💍 1893/2690	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	28 21	Severcarpie Severcarpie	25 years 17 years	House of Mrs Keys, East Severcarpie	93/2755		29 August 1893	Rev Robt Taylor
74	5 September 1893	Charles David Mills Jessie Clifford Henderson	Charles David Mills Jessie Crosly Henderson 💍 1893/2691	Bachelor Spinster	Platelayer	23 24	Severcarpie Severcarpie	3 years 8 years	House of Mrs Jas Henderson, Farm St, Severcarpie	93/2756		5 September 1893	Rev Geo Lindsay
75	11 September 1893	John Earl Bunnell Amelia Mary Anne Martin	John Carl Bunnell Amelia May Anne Martin 💍 1893/2681	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	21 21	Severcarpie Severcarpie	2 months 2 months	Church of England, Taylors Bay, Severcarpie	93/2763		11 September 1893	Rev Archdeacon Stocker
76	13 September 1893	Charles Alexander Clark Mary Clarke	Charles Alexander Clark Mary Clarke 💍 1893/2687	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker	29 31	Severcarpie Severcarpie	9 months 5 days	Office of the Registrar, Severcarpie	93/2752		13 September 1893	J. W. Wilkin, Registrar
77	18 September 1893	George Edward Townson Edith Sarah Ann Crutch	George Edward Townson Edith Sarah Ann Crutch 💍 1893/2678	Bachelor Spinster	Platelayer	24 20	Severcarpie Severcarpie	9 years 9 years	House of Mrs Charles Crutch, Lycett St, Severcarpie	93/2764	Charles Crutch, father	18 September 1893	Rev Joseph Sharp
78	20 September 1893	Colin Campbell Evelina Annie Chettleburgh	Colin Campbell Evelina Annie Chittleburgh 💍 1893/2676	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	21 21	Severcarpie Severcarpie	8 weeks 4 days	House of Rev J Ferguson, Severcarpie	93/2762		20 September 1893	Rev John Ferguson
79	28 September 1893	Henry George Thurza Rowley	Henry George Thurza Rowley 💍 1893/2684	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 21	Ruakarewa Ruakarewa	16 years 10 years	Church of England, Gladstone, Severcarpie	93/2770		28 September 1893	Rev H. W. Martin

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).