Intentions to Marry, 1896 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840409, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 11 2025

1896 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 303

District of Ashburton Quarter ending 31 March 1896

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
931	7 January 1896	Eli Good Fanny Stokes	Eli Good Fanny Stokes 💍 1896/4688	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	20 21	Greenstreet Greenstreet	20 years 18 years	Registrar's Office, Ashburton	96/645	Ellen Good, mother	7 January 1896	J. Ward, Registrar
932	17 February 1896	Recardus John Henry Annie Isabella James	Ricarthy John Heney Annie Isabella James 💍 1896/1004	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler	25 25	Ashburton Ashburton	11 years 2 years	Church of Parish of Ashburton	96/1776		17 February 1896	Revd. Canon O'Donnell
933	3 March 1896	Thomas Dent Mary Phillips	Thomas Dent Mary Phillips 💍 1896/4411	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 23	Lauriston Ashburton	18 years 10 years	Primitive Methodist Church at Ashburton	96/647		3 March 1896	Revd. John Olphert
934	10 March 1896	Ernest Joslin Hall Miriam Margaret Ellis	Ernest Joshu Hall Miriam Margaret Ellis 💍 1896/1070	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 26	Ruapuna Fendalton	16 months 12 years	Church of England, Christchurch	96/1810		17 March 1896	Revd. Hugh Northcote
935	18 March 1896	Henry Thompson Elizabeth Hill	Henry Thompson Elizabeth Hill 💍 1896/4400	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Domestic Servant	28 24	Netherby, Ashburton Wakanui	17 years 17 years	Private dwelling of Henry Thompson at Netherby, Ashburton	96/646		18 March 1896	Revd. Geo. B. Inglis
936	31 March 1896	William Potter Martha Hewitt	William Potter Martha Hewitt 💍 1896/1012	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	25 21	Ashburton Lower Riccarton, Christchurch	16 years 7 years	Private dwelling of Archibald Dowie at Lower Riccarton, Christchurch	96/1798

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).