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 794

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 30 June 1901 Registrar John Logan Bush

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
61	20 May 1901	Alfred Gorham Lambert Louisa Christina Fellows	Alfred Gorham Lambert Louisa Christina Hellows 💍 1901/2466	Bachelor Spinster	Photographer	28 19	Invercargill Invercargill	2 years 16 years	Church of Christ, Bowmont Street, Invercargill	01/2872	Richard Fellows, Father	20 May 1901	Rev J. Greenhill
62	21 May 1901	Henry Evans Jessie Buchanan	Henry Evans Jessie Buchanan 💍 1901/2457	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	31 26	Wrights Bush Wrights Bush	4 years 18 years	House of Rev Wm White, Wallacetown	01/2882		21 May 1901	Rev Wm White
63	21 May 1901	John William Stead Emily Agnes Rice	John William Stead Emily Agnes Rice 💍 1901/2447	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	23 24	Invercargill Invercargill	23 years 4 years	House of Rev John Stead, Tweed Street, Invercargill	01/2870		21 May 1901	Rev J. A. Luxford
64	24 May 1901	Alfred Walker Boyce Jessie Imrie	Alfred Walker Boyce Jessie Imrie 💍 1901/2454	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	26 26	Invercargill Invercargill	26 years 4 years	St Johns Church, Tay Street, Invercargill	01/2854		24 May 1901	Ven Archdeacon Stocker
65	24 May 1901	Richard Joseph Casey Annie Toogood	Richard Joseph Casey Annie Toogood 💍 1901/2396	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 21	Invercargill Invercargill	5 days 5 days	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Invercargill	01/2844		27 May 1901	J. L. Bush, Registrar
66	29 May 1901	William Alexander Gray Jane Gray Webster	William Alexander Gray Jane Gray Webster 💍 1901/2456	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Laborer	25 23	Wallacetown Wallacetown	25 years 5 years	Presbyterian Church, Wallacetown	01/2881		29 May 1901	Rev Wm White
67	29 May 1901	Percy Chiffett Shute Catherine Theresa Cockroft	Percy Chibbett Shirley Catherine Theresa Cockroft 💍 1901/3887	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	26 21	Invercargill Invercargill	5 months 18 years	House of Mrs Mary Cockroft, Leet Street, Invercargill	01/4406		29 May 1901	Rev Wm Burke
68	30 May 1901	Frank Robert Boyd Lucy Annie Rocke	Frank Robert Boyd Lucy Annie Rocke 💍 1901/2479	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	57 36	Waimatuku Invercargill	38 years 1 year	Presbyterian Church, Wallacetown	01/2880		30 May 1901	Rev Wm White

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).