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 1601

District of Invercargill 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
110	13 November 1893	Peter McDermid Lea McIntyre	Peter McDermid Isa McIntyre 💍 1893/3554	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 24	Wairarawa Grove Bush	22 years 23 years	Home of John Mc-Intyre, Grove Bush	93/3865		13 November 1893	Rev. Wm White
111	13 November 1893	William Paterson Reid Agnes Baldey	Wiliam Paterson Reid Agnes Baldey 💍 1894/927	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepharmer	23 25	Waimahuku Ryal Bush	6 years 25 years	House of Wm Baldey, Ryal Bush	94/906		13 November 1893	Rev. John Ferguson
112	13 November 1893	George Taylor Isabel Jane Wills	George Taylor Mabel Jane Wills 💍 1893/4146	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	22 16	Invercargill Invercargill	22 years 16 years	Church of England, Gladstone	93/3971	Mother of Isabel Jane Wills	13 November 1893	Rev. S. W. Dearbon
113	16 December 1893	Andrew Thomas Drake Janet Oliver Jefferson	Andrew Thomas Drake Janet Olive Jefcoate 💍 1894/924	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 24	Oteramika Oteramika	24 years 2 years	House of Thos Jefferson, Oteramika	94/903		16 December 1893	Rev. Wm Lovellass
114	18 December 1893	Robert Francis Taylor Margaret Millar	Robert Francis Taylor Margaret Millar 💍 1893/3387	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Porter	22 23	Invercargill Invercargill	12 months 12 months	Office of the Registrar, Invercargill	93/3797		18 December 1893	J. W. Wilkin, Registrar
115	18 December 1893	John Arthur Lennie Mary Ann Ashley	John Arthur Lennie Mary Ann Ashley 💍 1893/3385	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	27 22	Invercargill Invercargill	5 years 19 years	Primitive Methodist Church, Dee St	93/3793		18 December 1893	Rev. J. Sharp
116	20 December 1893	Bernard Dearly Fanny Freeth	Bernard Denly Fanny Freeth 💍 1893/3482	Bachelor Spinster	Builder	23 21	Invercargill Invercargill	18 months 5 months	Church of England at Gladstone	93/3778		20 December 1893	Ven. Archdeacon Stocker

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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).