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 809

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 31 December 1901 Registrar John Gaumon Petw

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
155	17 December 1901	John Harold Hemmings Elizabeth Namock	John Harold Atkinson Elizabeth Warnock 💍 1901/5145	Bachelor Spinster	Engine Driver W.R.	28 26	Invercargill Invercargill	7 years 7 years	House of David Namock, Ghuznee Street, Invercargill	01/5639		17 December 1901	Rev George Lindsay
156	17 December 1901	David Bryant Elizabeth Gibbs	David Bryant Elizabeth Gibb 💍 1901/5026	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	35 16	Invercargill Invercargill	9 years 16 years	Office of the Registrar, Invercargill	01/5605	Henry Edward Gibbs, Father	17 December 1901	Registrar of Marriages, Invercargill
157	17 December 1901	Esdras Benjamin Gee Jessie Watson Brass	Ernest Benjamin Gee Jessie Watson Brass 💍 1901/5146	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	25 25	Invercargill Invercargill	3 years 25 years	St Pauls Presbyterian Church, Invercargill	01/5640		17 December 1901	Rev George Lindsay
158	21 December 1901	James Gibbs Annie O'Connor McNaught	James Gibbs Annie Locksmore McNaught 💍 1901/5965	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	19 18	Invercargill Invercargill	19 years 4 years	Salvation Army Barracks, Tay Street, Invercargill	01/5613	Jesse Gibbs, Father; Robert John McNaught, Father	21 December 1901	Major Henry Gallant
159	21 December 1901	Thomas David Alexander Moffett Emily Moseley (nee Miller)	Thomas David Alexander Moffett Emily Moseley 💍 1901/6202	Bachelor Widow	Grain Broker Artist	35 34	Invercargill Invercargill	35 years 6 years	St John's English Church, Tay Street, Invercargill	01/5626		21 December 1901	Rev Archdeacon Stocker
160	23 December 1901	John Thomas Rooney Janet Cameron Lesson	John Thomas Kooney Janet Cameron 💍 1901/5019	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Employee General Servant	37 37	Invercargill Invercargill	37 years 3 years	St Marys R.C. Church, Clyde Street, Invercargill	01/5622		23 December 1901	Very Rev Dean Burke
161	23 December 1901	Charles Austin Alice Maud Taylor Stanway	Charles Austin Alice Maud Taylor Stanway 💍 1901/5163	Bachelor Spinster	Sawmill hand	26 19	Invercargill Invercargill	3 years 18 months	House of William Stanway, Earn Street, Invercargill	01/5635	William Stanway, Father	23 December 1901	Rev J. A. Ryburn

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).