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 413

District of Invercargill 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
8	16 January 1897	William Lawson Ada Aldred	William Lawson Ada Aldred 💍 1897/4458	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 28	Invercargill Invercargill	27 years 16 years	House of Mr W. Aldred, Leet Street, Invercargill	97/908		16 January 1897	Rev Geo Lindsay
9	18 January 1897	John Dawleywood Mary Jane Rillstone	James Dawby Wood Mary Jane Rillstone 💍 1897/4457	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	27 22	Hawthorn Clifton	14 years 6 years	House of Mr H. Roff, Clifton	97/907		18 January 1897	Rev J. Siscorn
10	22 January 1897	Alexander Fraser Jane Halbert	Alexander Fraser Jane Halbert 💍 1897/4498	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	28 28	Invercargill Invercargill	2 years 4 days	House of Mr G. Robertson, Strathearn	97/911		22 January 1897	Rev A. H. Stobo
11	23 January 1897	Edward Westbury Helen Bissett	Edward Westbury Helen Bissett 💍 1897/4463	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 18	Waianiwa Waianiwa	2 years 18 years	Office of the Registrar	97/891	Catherine Bissett, Mother	23 January 1897	J. W. Wilkin, Registrar
12	25 January 1897	Wishes McRobie Mary Taylor Dunlop	Nisbet McRobie Mary Taylor Dunlop 💍 1897/4443	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	24 25	Invercargill Invercargill	1 week 25 years	St Pauls Church, Dee Street	97/894		25 January 1897	Rev Geo Lindsay
13	25 January 1897	William Thomas Matthews Pauline Stuck	William Thomas Matthews Pauline Stuck 💍 1897/4450	Bachelor Spinster	Platelayer	21 22	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 3 days	St Johns Church, Tay Street	97/901		25 January 1897	Rev Archdeacon Stocker
14	27 January 1897	William Henry Britchell Mary Emma Buckingham	William Henry Mitchell Mary Emma Buckingham 💍 1897/4465	Widower Spinster	Engineer	50 45	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 3 days	Office of the Registrar	97/893		27 January 1897	J. W. Wilkin, Registrar

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).