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 943

District of Port Chalmers Quarter ending 31 December 1901 Registrar Thomas Hinchliff

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
28	2 October 1901	James Alfred Smith Winifred Ann Fulley	James Alfred Smith Rosina Ann Jelley 💍 1901/5058	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Domestic	24 24	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	Immediate Immediate	Registrar's Office, Port Chalmers	01/5692	2 October 1901	Thos Hinchliff, Registrar
29	10 October 1901	James Duncan Campbell Annie Jane Crawford	James Duncan Campbell Annie Lang Crawford 💍 1901/5059	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Dressmaker	26 27	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	Lawyers Bay Lawyers Bay	Presbyterian Church, Port Chalmers	01/5693	10 October 1901	Rev. G. C. Tennent, Presbyterian
30	15 October 1901	Charles Clark Louisa Smyth	Charles Clark Louisa Smyth 💍 1901/5113	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Nil	24 23	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	12 yrs 6 yrs	House of David Fisher, Port Chalmers	01/5699	15 October 1901	Rev. C. H. Standege, Wesleyan
31	25 October 1901	David Russell Isabella Young	David Russell Isabella Young 💍 1901/5060	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Nil	29 24	Purakanui Purakanui	29 yrs 10 yrs	House of David Young, Purakanui	01/5694	25 October 1901	Rev. G. C. Tennent, Presbyterian
32	25 October 1901	Henry Albert Stewart Letitia Louisa Voisey	Henry Albert Stewart Letitia Louise Voisez 💍 1901/6212	Bachelor Spinster	Joiner Nil	29 23	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	4 yrs 23 yrs	Church of England, Port Chalmers	01/5704	25 October 1901	Rev. T. W. Kewley, Church of England
33	7 November 1901	William Johnson Wallace Mary Ellen Cable	William Johnson Wallace Mary Ellen Cable 💍 1901/6211	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer Nil	26 24	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	8 days 20 yrs	Presbyterian Church, Port Chalmers	01/5695	7 November 1901	Rev. G. C. Tennent, Presbyterian

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).