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 556

District of Inglewood Quarter ending 31 December 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
228	21 October 1895	Andrew Henderson Mary Murphy	Andrew Henderson Mary Murphy 💍 1895/2267	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	30 25	Inglewood Featherston	2 months 6 months	The residence of Mr. John Murphy, Featherston	95/3774		21 October 1895	Rev. S. D. Perryman
229	22 October 1895	Francis Drake Eleanor Langley	Francis Drake Eleanor Langley 💍 1895/1963	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	27 22	Moa District Moa District	15 years 15 years	The residence of Mr. G. Dowell, Dudley Road, Moa District	95/3431		22 October 1895	Rev. W. K. Dawson
230	26 October 1895	John Stiller Anastasia Dunich	John Stellar Anastasia Dunick 💍 1895/1964	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	21 21	Moa District Moa District	16 years 5 years	The Roman Catholic Church, Inglewood	95/3432		26 October 1895	Rev. J. McKenna
231	8 November 1895	Francis Dodunski Apolonia Lehrke	Francis Dodunski Appolonia Lehrke 💍 1895/2545	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	20 21	Moa District Moa District	20 years 16 years	The Roman Catholic Church, Inglewood	95/4040		8 November 1895	Rev. J. McKenna
232	2 December 1895	John Hucker Thirzah Mabel Earl	John Hucker Thirzah Mabel Earl 💍 1895/1984	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	24 21	Moa District Moa District	5 years 20 years	The office of the Registrar, Inglewood	95/3428		2 December 1895	Edward Vickers, Deputy Registrar
233	23 December 1895	John Hannery Lily Clark	John Flannery Lily Clark 💍 1895/1985	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	33 20	Inglewood Inglewood	3 years 19 years	At the office of the Registrar, Inglewood	95/3429	Charles J. Clark, father of Lily Clark	23 December 1895	Edward Vickers, Deputy Registrar
234	28 December 1895	William Smith Mary Martha Stiller	William Smith Mary Martha Stiller 💍 1895/1962	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	31 21	Inglewood Moa District	3 days 10 years	The office of the Registrar, Inglewood	95/3430		28 December 1895	Robert Steven, Registrar

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).