Intentions to Marry, 1895 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840408, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 11 2025

1895 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 134

District of Hastings Quarter ending 30 September 1895

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
28	1 July 1895	Neal O'Neill Maggie Ann Domally	Neal O'Neil Maggie Ann Donnelly 💍 1895/1047	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	27 24	Hastings Hastings	4 years 10 years	Roman Catholic Church, Hastings	95/2355		1 July 1895	Father Smythe
29	5 July 1895	Andrew Bailey Ester Jane Piper	Andrew Bailey Esther Jane Piper 💍 1895/1550	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	41 22	Hastings Hastings	27 years 7 years	Registrars Office	95/2899		5 July 1895	Robert Braithwaite
30	15 July 1895	William Emanuel Maxwell Emily Ethel Boyd	William Emmanuel Maxwell Emily Ethel Boyd 💍 1895/1050	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter full	33 33	Hastings Hastings	2 years 2 years	House of H. E. Maxwell, Hastings	95/2357		15 July 1895	Revd John Hobbs
31	22 July 1895	Frank Leonard Bone Margaret Vaughan	Frank Leonard Bone Margaret Vaughan 💍 1895/3854	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	26 24	Hastings Hastings	12 years 14 years	St. Matthews Church, Hastings	95/2358		22 July 1895	Revd John Hobbs
32	17 August 1895	Edward George Chaderick Mary Ann Long	George Edward Chadwick Mary Ann Long 💍 1895/2	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	26 18	Tomoana, Hawkes Bay Waipukurau	4 years 2 months	House of M. H. Hodding, Waipukurau	95/2352	Thomas Long, Father	17 August 1895	Revd Alex Grant
33	27 August 1895	Denis McCarthy Annie Roberts	Denis McCarthy Ann Roberts 💍 1895/1049	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	31 31	Hastings Hastings	3 years 18 months	Roman Catholic Church, Hastings	95/2356		27 August 1895	Father Francis Dulach
34	30 August 1895	George William Symonds Mary Letitia Cooper	George William Symonds Mary Letitia Cooper 💍 1895/1539	Bachelor Spinster	Coach Builder School Teacher	28 28	Hastings Havelock H.B.	7 years 28 years	St. Lukes Church, Havelock	95/2910		30 August 1895	Revd Canon St. Hill
35	3 September 1895	Charles Alexander Hudson Susan Cochrane Logan	Charles Alexander Hudson Susan Cochrane Logan 💍 1895/3855	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	48 36	Dunedin Hastings	8 months 8 days	Church, Dunedin	95/2359		3 September 1895	Revd John Hobbs

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).