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 534

District of Quarter ending

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
50	13 June 1893	John Henry Trimmer Emily Alice Kraeft	John Henry Trimmer Emily Alice Knight 💍 1893/539	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolteacher	26 25	Port Ahuriri Port Ahuriri	3 yrs 25 yrs	St Andrews Church	93/1211		13 June 1893	Rev. G. Dean, St Andrews Church
51	20 June 1893	John Cumming Clarke Charlotte Isabella Forsythe	John Cumming Clarke Charlotte Isabella Forsythe 💍 1893/533	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor's Assistant	28 20	Napier Napier	1 yr 3 yrs	Residence of Mr. Forsythe, Bluff Hill, Napier	93/1205	William Forsythe	20 June 1893	Rev. J. G. Fox, Church of England
52	20 June 1893	Sidney Lyndon Cloak Christina Munro	Francis Alexander Cameron Christina Munro 💍 1893/3617	Bachelor Spinster	Dressmaker	22 over 21	Napier Napier	14 yrs 6 yrs	Presbyterian Manse, Napier	93/1201		20 June 1893	Rev. J. G. Paterson, Presbyterian Church
53	22 June 1893	William John James Alice Palmer	William Whyte Alice Parkin 💍 1893/2865	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic	25 over 21	Taradale Taradale	14 yrs 8 yrs	Residence of Rev. G. W. J. Spence, Napier	93/1209		22 June 1893	Rev. G. W. J. Spence, Wesleyan Methodist
54	23 June 1893	John Mackrell Annie Eleanor Hislop	John Mackrell Annie Eleanor Heslop 💍 1893/2484	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic	31 24	Puketapu Puketapu	3 yrs 10 yrs	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Napier	93/2274		23 June 1893	J. J. Pago, Registrar
55	23 June 1893	William Waterhouse Mary Phoebe Myatt	William Waterhouse Mary Phoebe Myatt 💍 1893/537	Widower Widow	Gardener	49 49	Taradale Taradale	18 yrs 1 mth	Residence of John Orr, Papakura, H. B.	93/1208		23 June 1893	Rev. S. Douglas, Presbyterian
56	24 June 1893	Lowry William North Maria Middleton Hewson	Lowry William North Maria Middleton Hewson 💍 1893/2499	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	26 24	Okawa, Fernhill Okawa	3 yrs 3 days 20 yrs	St Mathews Church, Hastings	93/2270		24 June 1893	Rev. C. L. Luke, Church of England
57	24 June 1893	Edmund John Stack Alice Cotton	Edmund John Stack Alice Cotton 💍 1893/2862	Bachelor Spinster	Fireman Domestic	30 22	Port Ahuriri Port Ahuriri	8 yrs 20 yrs	Presbyterian Church, Napier	93/2940		24 June 1893	Rev. J. G. Paterson, Presbyterian Church, Napier

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).