Indigenous Marriages

Between 1923-1945, some indigenous marriages were indexed separately from the general population.

Vital statistic indexes are yearly summaries of vital events that contain basic information such as name, location, year, and registration number. The indexes are used to locate registrations.

How to Locate Indigenous Marriage Registrations

Indigenous marriage indexes are organized alphabetically by surname and then by year. Each letter is then further subdivided according to the first vowel instance in the surname,

• i.e., Aa, Ae, Ai, Ao, Au; Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu, and so on.

For example Andrews will be found under Ae; McLean will be found under McE; Smith will be found under Si, and so on. (Please note: If there is no distinction between Mc and Mac, both will be together under one label. ‘Y’ is not considered a vowel.)

These indexes are often imprecise; if you are certain the marriage happened but are unable to locate the bride in the index, search under the other vowels in case it was indexed incorrectly. For example, if Hyde is not found under “He” (since ‘e’ is the first vowel in Hyde), check “Ha,” “Hi,” “Ho,” and “Hu.”

Please note that prior to 1917, years were assigned a letter or a number:

In the above example, Anase Adelaide is listed as being married in year II, which means she was married before 1897.

Please note that you are searching the indexes for a registration number rather than the registration records themselves.

How to Request an Indigenous Marriage Registration

Follow these steps to locate a registration number:

1. Select the first letter of the surname.
2. Scroll through the index to find the year the person was married in order to locate their name and registration number.
3. Request and pay for your Vital Statistics record by completing a Vital Statistics Request

Return to Marriage Indexes