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 731

District of Ashburton 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
921	7 October 1895	Godfrey Land Foster Isabella McDonald Brown	Godfrey Laud Foster Isabella McDonald Brown 💍 1895/2069	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Employee	28 22	Ashburton Ashburton	10 months 15 years	Private Dwelling of John Leslie Brown at Ashburton	95/3577		7 October 1895	Rev. B. Inglis
922	8 October 1895	John Price Ellen Price	John Price Ellen Price 💍 1895/2188	Bachelor Spinster	Station Manager	47 41	Maronan Pareora	6 months 2 months	Church of England at Beaconsfield	95/3693		8 October 1895	Rev. Lawrence C. Brady
923	11 October 1895	Richard Blake Mary Total	Richard Blake Mary Steel 💍 1895/2333	Bachelor Spinster	Retired Farmer Domestic Servant	57 39	Tinwald Alford Forest Road	6 weeks 3 weeks	Private Dwelling of John Stuk Alford Forest Road	95/3590		11 October 1895	Rev. Abbot Alger
924	19 October 1895	William Grice Eliza Jane Bradford	William Grice Eliza Jane Bradford 💍 1895/2353	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 20	Tinwald Allenton	6 months 20 years	St. Stephen's Church at Ashburton	95/3836	Father	19 October 1895	Rev. Thos. A. Hamilton
925	6 November 1895	Edward Francis Healy Mary Jane Bishop	Edward Francis Healy Mary Jane Bishop 💍 1895/2630	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	26 21	Ashburton Wheatstone	6 years 18 years	Church of Sacred Heart at Ashburton			6 November 1895	Rev. Canon O'Donnell
926	11 November 1895	Beauchamp Rawdon Mainwaring May Mainwaring	Beauchamp Ranald Macdonald May Mainwaring 💍 1895/2354	Bachelor Spinster	Station Manager	27 19	Ashburton Ashburton	3 days 16 years	St. Stephen's Church at Ashburton	95/3837	Father	11 November 1895	Rev. Thos. A. Hamilton
927	15 November 1895	William Henry March Hannah Elizabeth Houston	William Henry March Hannah Elizabeth Houston 💍 1895/2068	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	24 21	Longbeach Longbeach	11 years 4 years	Church of England at Waterton	95/3516		15 November 1895	Rev. John Blackbourne
928	13 December 1895	Edward Philip March Annie Gertrude Andrews	Edward Philip March Annie Gertrude Andrews 💍 1895/2067	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	23 22	Longbeach Longbeach	4 years 20 years	Registrar's Office at Ashburton	95/3515		13 December 1895	J. Ward, Registrar
929	18 December 1895	John Thomas Read Rebecca Pearson		Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Domestic Servant	23	Longbeach Waterton	2 years 3 days	St. Stephen's Church at Ashburton			20 December 1895	Rev. Thos. A. Hamilton
930	23 December 1895	Thomas Romain Catherine Agnes Pearson	Thomas Permain Catherine Agnes Pearson 💍 1895/2355 Thomas John Lind Eleanor Agnes Pearson 💍 1895/77	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	28 25	Ashburton Tinwald	3 days 5 years	St. Stephen's Church at Ashburton	95/3838		23 December 1895	Rev. Thos. A. Hamilton

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).