Intentions to Marry, 1900 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840418, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, September 12 2025

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

Page 688

District of Stratford Quarter ending 31 December 1900 Registrar Sydney Henry James

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
38	8 October 1900	Michael O'Connor Catherine Hayes	Michael O'Connor Catherine Hayes 💍 1900/4103	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	48 38	Kaponga Kaponga	9 months 20 years	The Catholic Church at Stratford	00/4448		8 October 1900	Rev. Wm. Johnson, Roman Catholic
39	15 October 1900	George William Hughes Caroline Susanna Doughty	George William Hughes Caroline Susannah Doughty 💍 1900/4109	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	22 23	Stratford Stratford	7 years 12 years	The residence of Sidney Ward, Regan Street, Stratford	00/4453		15 October 1900	Rev. N. D. Boyes, Church of England
40	18 October 1900	Herbert Grosswell Hunter Clara Best	Herbert Gresswell Hunter Clara Best 💍 1900/5759	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	25 19	Inglewood Stratford	1 month 4 years	The residence of Frederick Best, Broadway, Stratford	00/4458	Frederick Best, father	18 October 1900	Rev. J. A. Kochore, Wesleyan
41	27 October 1900	John Dodnopski Amelia Cowell	John Dodunski Amelia Cowell 💍 1900/4104	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 19	Durham Road, Inglewood Midhirst	23 years 19 years	The Roman Catholic Church at Stratford	00/4449	Mary Harmel, mother	27 October 1900	Rev. Wm. Johnson, Roman Catholic
42	10 November 1900	William Jelfar Annie Jane Hamblyn	William Telfar Annie Jane Hamblyn 💍 1900/4471	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic	23 22	Waitara Waipuku	3 years 2 years	The residence of Charles Hamblyn at Waipuku	00/4454		10 November 1900	Rev. S. G. Garlick, Wesleyan
43	5 December 1900	John Riye Annie Baldock	John Rye Annie Baldock 💍 1900/4102	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 22	Toko Toko	4 years 4 months	The residence of Rev. N. D. Boyes at Stratford	00/4447		5 December 1900	Rev. N. D. Boyes, Church of England
44	13 December 1900	Charles James Robinson Minnie Turner	Charles James Robinson Minnie Turner 💍 1900/4110 John William Townsend Minnie Turner 💍 1901/209	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 21	Cardiff Stratford	12 months 6 months	The Church of England at Stratford	00/4454		13 December 1900	Rev. N. D. Boyes, Church of England

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).