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 1461

District of Motueka Quarter ending 31 December 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
488	13 October 1893	John Harvey Martha Rachel Hart	John Harvey Martha Rachel Hart 💍 1893/3264	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Laborer	35 21	Upper Moutere Upper Moutere	35 years 21 years	Registrar's Office, Motueka	93/3474		13 October 1893	Joseph Foord Wilson, Registrar
489	3 November 1893	Samuel Manson Askew Margaret Euphemia Duncan	Samuel Manson Askew Margaret Euphemia Duncan 💍 1893/3265	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 18	Riwaka Riwaka	21 years 18 years	House of Mr Joseph Duncan, Riwaka	93/3475	Joseph Duncan, Father	3 November 1893	Rev. George Kinninmouth Stowell, Presbyterian Minister
490	20 November 1893	William Gotlieb Goebel Maria Margrete Catherine Schwass	William Gottliel Gocbel Marie Margrete Catharine Schwass 💍 1893/3918	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	29 21	Upper Moutere Upper Moutere	4 days 21 years	Church of the Cross, Upper Moutere	93/3476		20 November 1893	Rev. Wilhelm Friedrich Schwarz, Lutheran Minister
491	14 December 1893	Frederic Walter Cooke Effie May Chambers	Frederick Walter Cooke Evelyn Mary Chambers 💍 1893/3625	Bachelor Spinster	Banker	43 24	Motueka Cambridge, Auckland		Church of St. Andrew, Cambridge	93/3978		14 December 1893	Ven'ble William Newcombe De Laval Willis Archdeacon Ch: of England.
492	28 December 1893	Edwin Holtham Margaret Ellen Drummond	Edwin Holtham Margaret Ellen Drummond 💍 1894/690	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher School Teacher	26 25	Moutere Moutere	6 days 25 years	House of Mr James Drummond, Lower Moutere	94/560		28 December 1893	Rev. George H. Kinninmouth Stowell, Presbyterian Minister

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).