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 135

District of Nelson Quarter ending 30 September 1901 Registrar Sydney Blomfield

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
59	30 August 1901	Marmaduke Wilson Minnie Jemmens	Marmaduke Wilson Minnie Jennens 💍 1901/3162	Widower Minor	Household duties	56 17	Naimea Road Nelson South Street Nelson	7 months 40 years	At the residence of Marmaduke Wilson, Naimea Road Nelson	01/3674	30 August 1901	J. S. Smalley, Wesleyan Minister
60	4 September 1901	Ernest Lowell Soundy Rachel Agnes Galders	Ernest Lovell Soundy Mabel Venus Calders 💍 1901/3141	Bachelor Spinster	Draper Household duties	27 26	Stoke Stoke	2 months 3 days	Presbyterian Church, Nile Street Nelson	01/3670	4 September 1901	J. H. Mackenzie, Presbyterian Minister
61	13 September 1901	Edward Braddock Annie Eliza Weir	Edward Braddock Annie Eliza Weir 💍 1901/3142	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Household duties	28 23	Wellington Street Nelson Russell Street Nelson	18 months 23 years	At the residence of Robert Weir, Russell Street Nelson	01/3671	13 September 1901	J. H. Mackenzie, Presbyterian Minister
62	16 September 1901	James Liddle Martha Hall	James Liddle Martha Hall 💍 1901/3143	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper Assistant Domestic Duties	26 26	Washington Valley Nelson St Vincent Street Nelson	4 days 5 weeks	Trinity Presbyterian Church, Nile Street Nelson	01/3672	16 September 1901	J. H. Mackenzie, Presbyterian Minister
63	19 September 1901	David Bolton Sarah Jean Anderson	David Bolton Sarah Jean Anderson 💍 1901/3151	Bachelor Spinster	Florist Domestic Duties	40 25	Franklyn Street Nelson Naimea Road Nelson	12 months 2 years	At the residence of Mrs Millican, Milton Street Nelson	01/3673	19 September 1901	J. H. Mackenzie, Presbyterian Minister
64	24 September 1901	Ralph Drew Grace Mary Chandler	Ralph Drew France Mary Chandler 💍 1901/4561	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Duties	34 22	Gloucester Street Nelson Bridge Street Nelson	2 months 3 days	The Baptist Church, Bridge Street Nelson	01/5046	24 September 1901	R. S. Gray, Baptist Minister

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).