Intentions to Marry, 1899 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840415, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington (now located in the National Library reading room), September 5 2025

1899 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 963

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 30 June 1899 Registrar John Logan Bush

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
62	28 April 1899	William George Everett Alice Eliza Rycamore	William George Everett Alice Eliza Sycamore 💍 1899/2613	Widower Spinster	Railway Guard	35 32	Invercargill Invercargill	9 years 10 years	Church of Christ, Beaumont St	99/2560		28 April 1899	Allan Poole, per W. J. Way
63	28 April 1899	Hodges Swain Sarah Elizabeth McDonald	Hodges Swain Sarah Elizabeth McDonald 💍 1899/2591	Widower Spinster	Farmer	62 30	Oteramika Gorge Invercargill	3 years 11 months	First Church, Invercargill, Tay St	99/2538		28 April 1899	Rev. J. Gibson Smith
64	3 May 1899	Charles Augustus Kempton Jessie Grant	Charles Augustus Kempton Jessie Grant 💍 1899/2554	Bachelor Spinster	Plasterer	32 29	Invercargill Invercargill	15 years 2 years	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Invercargill	99/2525		3 May 1899	J. L. Bush, Registrar
65	5 May 1899	Edward James Emurch Elizabeth Mary Hewen	Edward James Murch Elizabeth Mary Niven 💍 1899/2561	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	21 19	Invercargill South Invercargill	7 years 9 years	House of Rev. William F. Church, Grace Street	99/2531	David Ellis Ramsey, father	5 May 1899	Rev. A. J. Prybus
66	5 May 1899	James Joseph Rishet Janet Ellen Graham	James Joseph Nisbet Janet Ellen Graham 💍 1899/2580	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 22	Invercargill Invercargill	10 years 6 months	St. John's Church, Tay St	99/2557		5 May 1899	Ven. Archdeacon Stocker
67	5 May 1899	Peter Due Harg Louisa Sanderson, M.N. Plumer	Peter McHarg Louisa Sanderson 💍 1899/2585	Bachelor Widow	Ploughman	45 47	Invercargill South Invercargill	3 days 3 days	House of Rev. D. K. Fisher	99/2555		5 May 1899	Rev. D. K. Fisher
68	9 May 1899	Robert Dunlop Elizabeth Cecelia Hurley	Robert Dunlop Elizabeth Cecilia McNelly 💍 1899/2574 Robert Dunlop Jane Gillespie 💍 1899/2315	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 28	Invercargill Invercargill	3 days 3 days	House of Rev. Wm. Burke, Eye Street	99/2545		9 May 1899	Rev. Wm. Burke
69	12 May 1899	Thomas Hide Ellen Annie Anderson	Thomas Hide Ellen Annie Anderson 💍 1899/2593	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	28 31	Invercargill Invercargill	16 months 23 years	House of J. Anderson, Esk St	99/2540		12 May 1899	Rev. J. Gibson Smith

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).