Intentions to Marry, 1897 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840412, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 25 2025

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

Page 402

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 30 September 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
75	6 September 1897	Charles Edmund Borne Margaret Smith	Charles Edward Borne Margaret Smith 💍 1897/139 Alexander Symon Margaret Smith 💍 1897/238 Thomas McAvoy Margaret Smith 💍 1897/1992 Thomas Todd Margaret Smith 💍 1897/3061	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 21	Invercargill Invercargill	27 years 21 years	House of Andrew Smith, Grace Street, Appleby	97/3512		6 September 1897	Rev. J. Gibson Smith
76	6 September 1897	George Henry Crust Jessie Hamilton Smith	George Henry Crust Jessie Hamilton Smith 💍 1897/140	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	25 26	Invercargill Invercargill	6 years 6 years	House of Andrew Smith, Grace Street, Appleby	97/3513		6 September 1897	Rev. J. Gibson Smith
77	7 September 1897	Jack Hayward Browning Grace Fairlie Croxton	Jack Maynard-Browning Grace Fairlie Morton 💍 1897/141	Widower Spinster	Ironmonger	37 25	Invercargill Invercargill	4 days 25 years	First Church, Tay Street, Invercargill	97/3514		7 September 1897	Rev. J. Gibson Smith
78	11 September 1897	Edward James Crisp Emily Smith	Edward James Crisp Emily Smith 💍 1897/2271	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 20	South Invercargill South Invercargill	23 years 12 years	House of George Smith, Sokurst	97/3520	George Smith, Father	11 September 1897	Rev. J. Guy
79	13 September 1897	Ernest Joel Chapman Emmeline Ruth Harrington	Ernest Joel Chapman Emmeline Ruth Harrington 💍 1897/2270	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	30 21	Invercargill Invercargill	3 years 3 days	First Church, Tay Street, Invercargill	97/3515		13 September 1897	Rev. J. Gibson Smith
80	13 September 1897	Frank Dubrelle Monah Frances Elsie Royse	Frank Bubrelle Morrah Frances Elsie Royse 💍 1897/2248	Bachelor Spinster	Station Manager	31 25	Morton Mains Dunedin	2 years 23 years	All Saints Church, Dunedin	97/3476		13 September 1897	Very Rev. J. A. R. Fitchett
81	14 September 1897	Ernest William Barwell Margaret Ann Scott	Earnest William Barwell Margaret Ann Scott 💍 1897/132	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 27	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 2 years	House of John Scott, Tay Street, Invercargill	97/3506		14 September 1897	Rev. A. Poole

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).