Intentions to Marry, 1901 South Island

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840420, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, September 22 2025

1901 is bound in two volumes, North Island districts and South Island districts.

Page 171

District of Waimea South Quarter ending 30 June 1901 Registrar Eliab Baigent

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
2	3 April 1901	George Morrison Alice Currin	George Morrison Alice Cussin 💍 1901/2039	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	31 37	Wakefield Wakefield	20 years 37 years	Residence of Alice Currin, Wakefield	01/2342		3 April 1901	Edward Lewis, Church of Christ
3	8 April 1901	Samuel Pender Long Alice Boddington	Samuel Pender Lang Alice Boddington 💍 1901/2040	Bachelor Spinster	Boot-machinist	31 25	Spring Grove Spring Grove	3 days 25 years	Residence of Robert Boddington, Spring Grove	01/2343		8 April 1901	Edward Lewis, Church of Christ
4	9 April 1901	George Reay Eliza Phoebe Ophelia Verry	George Reay Eliza Phoebe Ophelia Verry 💍 1901/2037	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	31 24	Brightwater Wakefield	5 months 24 years	Residence of James Ives, Wakefield	01/2340		9 April 1901	W. P. Baker, Church of England
5	11 April 1901	James Jabez Allen Lily Alice Margaretta Hayward	James Jabez Allen Lily Alice Margaretta Hayward 💍 1901/3164	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 21	Foxhill Belgrove	13 years 4 years	Wesleyan Chapel, Foxhill	01/3695		11 April 1901	J. F. Carr, Wesleyan Methodist
6	6 May 1901	Armoed Hodgen Ethel Alice Hunt	Arnold Hodgen Ethel Alice Hunt 💍 1901/2058 Arnold Hodgen Ethel Alice Hunt 💍 1901/2058	Bachelor Spinster	Postmaster	33 21	Tophouse Tophouse	20 months 5 months	Accommodation House at Tophouse	01/2337		6 May 1901	F. W. Chatterton, Church of England
7	13 May 1901	Charles Henry William Ricketts Annie Eliza McLean	Charles Henry William Ricketts Annie Eliza McLean 💍 1901/2057	Bachelor Spinster		27 19	Spring Grove Foxhill	6 months 16 years	Registrar's Office, Wakefield	01/2336	Eliza Nesbitt, mother	13 May 1901	Eliab Baigent, Registrar of Marriages
8	27 May 1901	Peter John Dickson Jane McGowan	Peter John Dickson Jane McGowan 💍 1901/2041 Peter John Dickson Jane McGowan 💍 1901/2041	Widower Spinster	Saddler	43 49	Wakefield Spring Grove	3 days 49 years	Christian Chapel, Spring Grove	01/2344		27 May 1901	Edward Lewis, Church of Christ

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 1901. 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).