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 1475

District of Hokitika 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
16	16 October 1893	Frederick James Sparrow Mary Ann Stradfrey	Frederick James Harrop Mary Ann Shaffrey 💍 1893/3590	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk do	26 24	Hokitika Hokitika	18 years 23 years	Residence of [illegible] Stradfrey	93/3872		16 October 1893	Rev. E. H. Marsden, Primitive Methodist Minister
17	17 October 1893	Alfred John Debenham Isabella Taylor	Alfred John Debenham Isabella Taylor 💍 1893/3433	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman do	31 20	Hokitika Hokitika	26 years 20 years	Residence of [illegible] Taylor	93/3497	John Russell Taylor, father	17 October 1893	Rev. W. Douglas, Presbyterian Minister
18	18 October 1893	John Samuel Dawson Alice Hooss	John Samuel Dawes Alice Ross 💍 1893/3432 John James Murphy Alice Hicks 💍 1894/372	Bachelor Spinster	Journalist do	27 26	Hokitika Hokitika	18 years 26 years	Residence of [illegible] Hooss	93/3496		18 October 1893	Rev. J. S. Burrows, Wesleyan Minister
19	20 October 1893	Jacob Swan Bridget Swan	Jacob Hager Bridget Dwan 💍 1893/3601	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	48 25	Woodstock Hokitika	18 years 25 years	Residence of [illegible] Swan	93/3873		20 October 1893	Rev. E. H. Marsden, Primitive Methodist Minister
20	28 November 1893	Henry Halliday Margaret O'Connor	Henry Holden Halliday Margaret O'Connor 💍 1893/3607	Bachelor Spinster	Miner do	40 30	Hokitika Hokitika	11 months 20 years	Roman Catholic Church, Hokitika	93/3874		28 November 1893	Rev. E. H. Marsden, Primitive Methodist Minister
21	29 December 1893	Simpson F. H. Leans Eliza McMillan	Livingstone Forsyth McNair Eliza McMillan 💍 1893/3924	Bachelor Spinster	Miner do	24 24	Hokitika Hokitika	3 Days 24 years	Residence of [illegible] McMillan	93/3498		29 December 1893	Rev. W. Douglas, Presbyterian Minister
22	29 December 1893	Henry J. Bradley Rebecca Gaddes	Henry James Bradley Rebecca Saddles 💍 1893/3413	Bachelor Widow	Farmer Domestic	44 46	Hokitika Hokitika	4 Days 14 Days	Registrars Office, Hokitika	93/3499		29 December 1893	R. B. Cresswell, Registrar Hokitika
23	29 December 1893	Timothy Crowe Bridget Synnott	Timothy Crowe Bridget Lynch 💍 1893/3608	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic	36 24	Hokitika Hokitika	3 Days 1 month	Roman Catholic Church, Hokitika	93/3875		29 December 1893	Rev. E. H. Marsden, Primitive Methodist Minister
24	30 December 1893	Francis Su. Milton Annie G. Isaac		Bachelor Spinster	Engineer do	29 26	Hokitika Hokitika	4 Days 14 years	All Saints Church, Hokitika	94/603		30 December 1893	Rev. J. Blackburne, Church of England

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).