Intentions to Marry, 1897 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840411, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 25 2025

1897 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 039

District of Coromandel Quarter ending 31 March 1897

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
171	22 January 1897	Peter George Kelly Rosina Clarkson	Peter George Kelly Rosina Clarkson 💍 1897/4094	Bachelor Spinster	Engine Driver	22 24	Coromandel Coromandel	12 months 4 months	Christ Church Coromandel	97/150		22 January 1897	The Rev Charles Frederic Robert Harrison
172	22 January 1897	Hopkin Thomas Catherine Frances Siebert	Hopkin Thomas Catherine Francis Gilbert 💍 1897/4264	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	24 21	Coromandel Coromandel	8 months 15 months	At the residence of Mr H. Wetpanville Woollams, Coromandel	97/153		22 January 1897	The Rev George Frost
173	23 January 1897	John Henry Levy Margaret Stevenson Gibson	John Henry Levy Margaret Stevenson Gibson 💍 1897/4095	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	24 19	Coromandel Coromandel	3 months 3 days	At the House of Mr Crawford Rives Road Coromandel	97/152	James Gibson, father	23 January 1897	The Rev Edward Ovenden Perry
174	25 January 1897	Frederick Jones Eliza Spence	Frederick Jones Eliza Spence 💍 1897/4092	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	27 26	Coromandel Coromandel	25 years 26 years	At the House of Mr W. H. Spence Whangapoua	97/148		25 January 1897	The Rev Charles Frederic Robert Harrison
175	25 January 1897	Robert Henry Calderbank Bertha Eliza Montgomery	Robert Henry Calderbank Bertha Eliza Montgomery 💍 1897/918	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	27 20	Coromandel Coromandel	12 months 20 years	At the House of Mr Robert Montgomery Buffalo Town Coromandel	97/159	Robert Montgomery, Father	25 January 1897	The Rev Edward Ovenden Perry
176	25 January 1897	Edward John Carlyon Margaret Young	Edward John Carlyon Margaret Young 💍 1897/4093 David Harris Margaret Young 💍 1897/131	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	27 23	Coromandel Coromandel	15 months 6 months	At Christ Church Coromandel	97/149		25 January 1897	The Rev Charles Frederic Robert Harrison
177	26 January 1897	Patrick Thomas Keary Mary Letitia Dunn	Patrick Thomas Keary Mary Letitia Dunn 💍 1897/4275	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	25 24	Coromandel Coromandel	25 years 24 years	At St Colemans Church Coromandel	97/154		26 January 1897	The Rev Michael Egan
178	26 January 1897	Benny Ngapo Peggy McGregor	Benny Ngapo Peggy McGregor 💍 1897/4089	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	18 17	Coromandel Coromandel	16 years 3 months	At the office of the Registrar Coromandel	97/146	B. Ngapo, Father; James McGregor, Father	26 January 1897	The Registrar of Marriages Coromandel
179	8 February 1897	Stephen McGrath Annie Springgay	Stephen McGrath Annie Springgay 💍 1897/4282	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 21	Coromandel Coromandel	6 months 5 weeks	At St Colemans Church Coromandel	97/155		8 February 1897	The Rev Michael Egan

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).