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 737

District of Gabriels Quarter ending 30 June 1901 Registrar Alexander Millar Eyles

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
77	10 April 1901	William Christian Burmester Isabella Nicoll Black	William Christian Burmister Isabella Nicoll Black 💍 1901/2382	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	25 24	Lawrence Lawrence	3 days 16 years	Presbyterian Church Lawrence	01/2820		10 April 1901	Revd J. A. Will (Presbyterian)
78	10 April 1901	Edward Tamblyn Maggie Newton Storry	Edward Lamblyn Maggie Newton Storry 💍 1901/2393	Bachelor Spinster	Sharebroker Dressmaker	26 27	Lawrence Lawrence	4 days 20 years	Presbyterian Church Lawrence	01/2821		10 April 1901	Revd J. A. Will (Presbyterian)
79	6 May 1901	John McDown Elizabeth Spence McDonald	John McGown Elizabeth Spence Macdonald 💍 1901/2401 John McLean Elizabeth Carson 💍 1902/427	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	27 20	Raes Junction Raes Junction	10 months 20 years	At the house of Mrs Peterina McDonald Raes Junction	01/2825	Peterina McDonald	6 May 1901	Revd Robert Telford (Presbyterian)
80	7 May 1901	John William McIvor Jane Williamson Dodds	John William McIvor Jane Williamson Dodds 💍 1901/2398	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	25 24	Lawrence Lawrence	3 years 11 years	Presbyterian Church Lawrence	01/2822		7 May 1901	Revd J. A. Will (Presbyterian)
81	17 May 1901	Sydney Smith Lilian West	Sydney Smith Lilian West 💍 1901/2399	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	21 21	Lawrence Lawrence	2 years 1 week	The Wesleyan Parsonage Lawrence	01/2823		17 May 1901	Revd J. S. W. Ellis (Wesleyan)
82	29 June 1901	Edmund Sainsbury Violet Isabella Rose Buckham	Edmund Sainsbury Violet Isabella Rose Buckham 💍 1901/2400	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	21 17	Waipori Waipori	3 weeks 1 month	At the house of W. W. Bennett, Waipori	01/2824	Ralph Buckham	29 June 1901	Revd J. S. W. Ellis (Wesleyan)

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).