Intentions to Marry, 1896 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840410, 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 388

District of Gabriels Quarter ending 30 September 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
516	13 July 1896	Hugh Blaikie Edith Weathersall	Hugh Blaikie Edith Weatherall 💍 1896/2320	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 years 23 years	Waitahuna East Lawrence	17 years 2 years	House of John Weathersall, Rose Place, Lawrence	96/3237		13 July 1896	Rev. John D. Jory (Wesleyan)
517	16 July 1896	Robert Bruce Capstick Isabella Borthwick	Robert Bruce Capstick Isabella Borthwick 💍 1896/2318	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic Servant	32 years 39 years	Beaumont Beaumont	8 years 16 years	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Lawrence	96/3235		16 July 1896	W. A. D. Banks (Deputy Registrar)
518	27 July 1896	William Seen Luong Edith Emily Fanny Robinson	William Alan Quong Edith Emily Fanny Robinson 💍 1896/2319	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	28 years 18 years	Lawrence Lawrence	22 years 18 years	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Lawrence	96/3236		27 July 1896	W. A. D. Banks (Deputy Registrar)
519	27 July 1896	John Alexander Eady Martha Jane Ross	John Alexander Eady Martha Jane Ross 💍 1896/2346	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	23 years 11 months 22 years	Millers Flat Munros Gully	23 years 11 months 22 years	House of Francis Alexander Ross at Munros Gully	96/3289		27 July 1896	Rev. F. A. Will (Presbyterian)
520	25 August 1896	James Brown Mary Jane Hewitson	James Brown Mary Jane Hewitson 💍 1896/2348	Bachelor Spinster	Rabbitter General Servant	30 years 18 years	Tuapeka West Tuapeka West	3 years 5 years	Presbyterian Manse, Lawrence	96/3290	Hamilton Hewitson, father	25 August 1896	Rev. F. A. Will (Presbyterian)

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).