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 845

District of Motueka Quarter ending 30 June 1900 Registrar Joseph Foord Wilson

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
610	14 April 1900	Richard Chapman Eliza Caroline Bisley	Richard Chapman Eliza Caroline Bisley 💍 1900/3228	Bachelor Spinster	Fruit Grower Dressmaker	22 24	Pangatotara Motueka	22 24	Registrar's Office, Motueka	00/2081		14 April 1900	Joseph Foord Wilson, Registrar
611	27 April 1900	Henry Reginald Hewetson Margaret Roberta Macintyre	Henry Reginald Hewetson Margaret Roberta Macintyre 💍 1900/3224	Bachelor Spinster	Flour Miller Music Teacher	29 32	Motueka Motueka	29 30	Registrar's Office, Motueka	00/2077		27 April 1900	Joseph Foord Wilson, Registrar
612	30 April 1900	Reginald de Courcy Peppin Mary Catherine Hilda Beatson	Reginald de Conrez Peppin Mary Catherine Hilda Beatson 💍 1900/3226	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 20	Motueka Ngatimoti	3 days 10 years	St. James' Church, Ngatimoti	00/2079	Charles Edward Beatson, Father	30 April 1900	Rev. William George Baker, Church of England Minister
613	7 May 1900	Augustus Frederick Hugo Sixtus Emily Chapman	Augustus Frederick Hugo Sixtus Emily Chapman 💍 1900/3227	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Housekeeper	31 34	Riwaka Riwaka	3 days 34 years	House of Mr. James Chapman, Pangatotara	00/2080		7 May 1900	Rev. James Hutton McKenzie, Presbyterian Minister
614	8 May 1900	Joseph Lodder Duncan Amy Eliza Fry	Joseph Lodder Duncan Amy Eliza Fry 💍 1900/3225	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Duties	30 30	Riwaka Riwaka	30 30	Registrar's Office, Motueka	00/2078		8 May 1900	Joseph Foord Wilson, Registrar

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).