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 588

District of Tauranga Quarter ending 30 June 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
288	21 April 1896	Robert Sargeant Balmer Ellen Mary Clifford	Robert Sergeant Balmer Ellen Mary Clifford 💍 1896/533	Bachelor Spinster	Book Domestic duties	29 25	Tauranga Tauranga	6 months 3 months	At Mr. C. Baker's boarding house, Tauranga	96/1286	21 April 1896	The Rev. A. Ashcroft, Wesleyan Minister
289	15 May 1896	Alexander Wilson Raymond Ellen Elizabeth	Alexander Wilson Ellen Elizabeth Raymond 💍 1896/534	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Nil	26 17	Te Puke Te Puke	3 years 10 years	In the Registrar's Office, Tauranga	96/1287	15 May 1896	John Thomson, Registrar of Marriages, Tauranga
290	10 June 1896	Thomas Boyd Mandeno Charlotte Creed	Thomas Lloyd Mandens Charlotte Creed 💍 1896/536	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Nil	30 21	Tauranga Tauranga	2 years 2 years	At the residence of Mr. T. B. Mandeno, Tauranga	96/1288	10 June 1896	The Rev. J. Scott, Presbyterian Minister, Tauranga
291	13 June 1896	Charles Pere Parata Katherine Rongohewa Asher	Charles Rere Parata Katherine Te Rongokahira Asher 💍 1896/1459	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Nil	29 21	Tauranga Tauranga	15 days 21 years	At the Tauranga Hotel, Tauranga	96/2331	13 June 1896	The Rev. C. Jordan, Church of England Clergyman
292	15 June 1896	Thomas Kennedy Annie Sims	Thomas Kennedy Annie Sims 💍 1896/558	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Dressmaker	35 28	Tauranga Tauranga	19 days 28 years	At the Roman Catholic Church, Tauranga	96/1314	15 June 1896	The Rev. J. Broomfield, Roman Catholic Clergyman
293	16 June 1896	Charles Dudley Willmott Emily Fairbrass	Charles Dudley Willmott Emily Fairbrass 💍 1896/1460	Bachelor Spinster	Settler Nil	32 21	Tauranga Tauranga	2 months 3 days	At Trinity Church, Tauranga	96/2332	16 June 1896	The Rev. C. Jordan, Church of England Clergyman

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).