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 806

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 31 December 1901 Registrar J. S. Petus

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
133	9 November 1901	John Goodlet Elizabeth Forrester	John Goodlet McPherson Elizabeth Forrester 💍 1901/5014	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 26	Invercargill Invercargill	20 years 22 years	Presbyterian Church, Tay Street, Invercargill	01/5615		9 November 1901	Rev. J. Gibson Smith
134	12 November 1901	William John Stuthers Wunlip Agnes Ellen Johnston	William John Struthers Dunlop Florence Ellen Johnston 💍 1901/5304	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	31 30	Invercargill Wellington	2 years 3 months	Wellington	01/5844		12 November 1901	Rev. William Campbell Waters
135	12 November 1901	Hugh Campbell May Pascoe	Hugh Campbell Mary Varcoe 💍 1901/5162	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	26 23	Invercargill Invercargill	20 years 25 years	Home of Alexander H. Kanzel, Liddel Street, Invercargill	01/5632		19 November 1901	Rev. T. L. Pybus
136	20 November 1901	Thomas Benton Charlotte Longuet	Thomas Buxton Charlotte Longuet 💍 1901/5043	Widower Spinster	Brickmaker Housekeeper	67 44	Invercargill Invercargill	36 years 19 years	Office Registrar of Marriages, Invercargill	01/5599		20 November 1901	Registrar of Marriages, Invercargill
137	23 November 1901	James Charles Hewlett Christina Daisy Burns	Henry Charles Hewlett Christina Daisy Burns 💍 1901/5155	Bachelor Spinster	School Teacher Domestic duties	26 20	Invercargill Invercargill	20 years 10 years	Home of Andrew Sharp, Burns, Otautau	01/5648	Andrew Sharp, Father	23 November 1901	Rev. W. W. White
138	23 November 1901	George Hodgson Georgina Flowers	George Hodgkinson Georgina Flowers 💍 1901/5499	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 20	Invercargill Invercargill	20 years 3 years	Home of Charles William Flowers, Otautau	01/6043	Charles William Flowers, Father	23 November 1901	Rev. Charles Alexander Gray
139	26 November 1901	John William Georgeson Ellen Little	John William Georgeson Ellen Glendining Little 💍 1901/5167	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 24	Invercargill Invercargill	24 years 8 years	Home of Mary Simpson Little, Tay Street, Otautau	01/5637		26 November 1901	Rev. C. E. Lindsay
140	26 November 1901	Thomas Bernard Gibberd Irene Burke	Thomas Bernard Gelooley Bessie Burke 💍 1901/5966	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	22 22	Invercargill Invercargill	20 years 20 years	Roman Catholic Church, Clyde Street, Invercargill	01/5620		26 November 1901	The Very Rev. Dean Burke

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).