Intentions to Marry, 1900 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840417, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, September 12 2025

1900 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 242

District of Shannon Quarter ending 31 March 1900 Registrar William Charles Nation

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
51	26 January 1900	George Henry Wright Sarah Huff	George Henry Wright Sarah Huff 💍 1900/507 George Henry Phillips Sarah Jane Huff 💍 1900/188	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic duties	23 18	Poratawhas Poratawhas	Two years One year	Office of the Registrar at Levin	00/476	George Huff, father	26 January 1900	W. C. Nation, Registrar, Levin
52	9 February 1900	Arthur Stenhope Aldrich Susanna Maria Lent	Arthur Stanhope Aldrich Susanna Maria Sent 💍 1900/438	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic duties	28 23	Tokomaru Bunnythorpe	Six months Eighteen months	Office of the Registrar at Bunnythorpe, Ashhurst	00/382		9 February 1900	W. C. Nation, Registrar at Ashhurst
53	12 February 1900	William Slater Rogers Agnes McRae	William Slater Rogers Agnes McRae 💍 1900/506	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor Domestic duties	37 27	Levin Levin	Six years Fifteen months	Residence of Mr. C. Williams, Weraroa, of Otaki	00/475		12 February 1900	Rev. Father Melu
54	28 February 1900	John Edmund Leeson Mary Seales	John Edmund Leeson Mary Seales 💍 1900/505	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic duties	35 22	Levin Levin	Six years Seven years	Residence of Mr. Mark Seales, Levin	00/474		28 February 1900	Rev. H. E. Bellhouse, Levin
55	28 February 1900	John Henry Miles Cole Louisa Priscilla Munroe	John Henry Mills Cole Louise Priscilla Munroe 💍 1900/504	Bachelor Spinster	Baker Domestic duties	24 23	Shannon Shannon	Seven months Eight months	Methodist Church, Shannon	00/473		28 February 1900	Rev. M. Woollass, Foxton
56	3 March 1900	Johan Lind Herdeo Windeler	Johan Lind Herdes Windelev 💍 1900/497	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic duties	31 17	Levin Levin	Twelve months Two and a half years	Office of the Registrar at Levin	00/472	John Windeler, father	3 March 1900	W. C. Nation, Registrar, Levin

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).