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 716

District of Feilding Quarter ending 31 December 1899 Registrar Edward Packer Cowles

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
579	10 October 1899	John Low Isabella Langley	John Low Isabella Caroline Stanford Langley 💍 1899/4708	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	36 32	Feilding Feilding	14 days 14 days	House of Joseph Belfit Stafford Feilding	99/4395		10 October 1899	Rev Peter W. Jones
580	19 October 1899	Frank H. Usmar Rowena Kathleen Birch	Frank Harold Usmar Rowena Kathleen Birch 💍 1899/4711	Bachelor Spinster	Farm laborer	19 21	Cunningham's Cheltenham	4 years 7 years	Registrars office Feilding	99/4398	Mary Usmar mother	19 October 1899	Registrar
581	23 October 1899	Albert Hammond Chamberlain Mary Elizabeth Devery	Albert Hammond Chamberlain Mary Elizabeth Devery 💍 1899/4712	Bachelor Spinster	Dentist	22 22	Feilding Feilding	20 years 3 months	Presbyterian Church Feilding	99/4399		23 October 1899	Rev Charles Murray
582	31 October 1899	Edwin Neil Grice Annie McDougall	Edwin Neil Grice Annie McDougall 💍 1899/4717	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	31 34	Feilding Waituna West	3 days 1 month	House of Mrs McDougall Waituna West	99/4405		31 October 1899	Rev Alexander Blake
583	7 November 1899	Colin Sinclair Walker Theresa Moess	Colin Sinclair Walker Theresa Moess 💍 1899/5193	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 26	Feilding Feilding	3 days 3 weeks	Church of England Feilding	99/5070		7 November 1899	Rev Alan Stanley Jones
584	8 November 1899	Joseph Hundle Bertha Fidler	Joseph Hurdle Bertha Fidler 💍 1899/4709	Bachelor Spinster	Farm hand	25 24	Feilding Feilding	25 years 8 years Makino	House of George Fidler	99/4396		8 November 1899	Rev Peter W. Jones
585	27 December 1899	Charles Schmidt Betty Bilderbeck	Charles Schmidt Betty Bilderbeck 💍 1899/4710	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	23 20	Feilding Feilding	3 days 20 years	Wesleyan Church Feilding	99/4397		27 December 1899	Rev Thos W. Yealie

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).