Intentions to Marry, 1899 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840416, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole 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 446

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 30 September 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
106	7 September 1899	Frederick Hall Elizabeth Amelda Kingston	Frederick Hall Elizabeth Amelda Kingston 💍 1899/3720	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	29 21	Drew River Drew River	5 years 2 weeks	Office of the Registrar Invercargill	99/3755		7 September 1899	J. L. Bush Registrar
107	12 September 1899	Donald William Grieve Scoble Ruth Boyd	David William Grieve Noble Ruth Boyd 💍 1899/3765	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	24 18	Waianiwa Waianiwa	24 years 10 years	Residence of Mr Francis Boyd Waianiwa	99/3771	Francis Boyd Father	12 September 1899	Rev Wm White
108	12 September 1899	Thomas Rae Florence Louisa Beatrice Moreton	Thomas Rae Florence Louisa Beatrice Moreton 💍 1899/3786	Bachelor Spinster	Dairy Factory Manager Domestic duties	25 26	Invercargill Gladstone Invercargill	3 days 26 years	House of Mrs Clara Moreton Gladstone Invercargill	99/3768		12 September 1899	Rev Walter Gray
109	18 September 1899	Arthur Henry Widdas Ann Evan Dempster	Arthur Henry Widdas Ann Marr Dempster 💍 1899/3766	Bachelor Spinster	Hairdresser	28 28	Invercargill Avenal Invercargill	5 years 28 years	House of Mrs Elizabeth Dempster Avenal Invercargill	99/3772		18 September 1899	Rev Wm White
110	19 September 1899	James Crowther Mary Beatrice Watson	James Crowther Mary Beatrice Watson 💍 1899/3726	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	22 23	Invercargill Invercargill	18 years 1 year	St Johns Church of England Tay Street Invercargill	99/3761		19 September 1899	Ven Archdeacon Stocker
111	25 September 1899	Donald McDonald Ellen Quand Brown	Donald McDonald Ellen Maud Brown 💍 1899/135	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	38 26	Invercargill Wallacetown	3 days 26 years	House of Mr George Dalrymple Brown Wallacetown	99/3773		25 September 1899	Rev Wm White
112	26 September 1899	Herbert Hibbs Jane Watt	Herbert Hibbs Jane Watt 💍 1899/3721	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	19 18	Long Bush Seawards Bush	6 months 9 months	Office of the Registrar of Marriages Invercargill	99/3756	John Hibbs & Alexander Watt fathers.	26 September 1899	Wm. A. S. Willcox Deputy Registrar
113	29 September 1899	Stephen Dewe Elizabeth Clark	Stephen Dewe Elizabeth Clark 💍 1899/3722	Bachelor Spinster	Cabman	45 23	Invercargill Invercargill	25 years 9 years	House of Mr Stephen Dewe Yarrow Street Invercargill	99/3757		29 September 1899	Rev John A Luxford

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).