1856 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840368, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 18 2024

Page 057

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30th of September 1856

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
47	17 June 1856	Charles Spurgin Susan Johnston	Charles Spurgin Susan Johnston 💍 1856/2029	Bachelor Spinster	Corporal 65th Regiment Domestic Servant	29 years 27 years	Mound Cook Barracks do	18 months Upwards of 4 years	At the private residence of the Ford Kinton, Wellington Terrace	724	July 2nd 1856	The Revd William Kirton and others
50	24th June 1856	Duncan Mckenzie Isabella Christie	Duncan McKenzie Isabella Christie 💍 1856/2032	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Domestic Servant	32 years 18 years	Hutt Hutt	About 18 months About 4 years	Private residence of Mrs Swinlon, at the Hutt		July 11th 1856	The Revd William Kirton and others
51	30th June 1856	Maurice Murray Sarah Reed	Maurice Murray Sarah Reed 💍 1856/1388	Bachelor Spinster	Steam pipe Fitter Domestic Servant	30 years 23 years	Lambton Quay Married Street	2 months 2 months	St Mary's Chapel (Roman Catholic) Boulcott Street		July 15th 1856	The Revd J. J. P. O'Reilly and others
52	8th July 1856	Almon Boulert Eliza Lavinia Sripston	Almon Boulcott Eliza Lavinia Hopton 💍 1856/1970	Bachelor Spinster	Servant Daughter of the late Mr Thomas Sripston	39 years 22 years	Hutt Hutt	About 14 years About 15 years	Private residence of Mr Thomas at the Hutt		July 23rd 1856	The Revd Henry Green and others
53	4th August 1856	John Richard Stays Matilda Bowler	John Richard Hays Matilda Bowler 💍 1856/1319	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant Daughter of Mr Bowler Esq Merchant of Wellington	25 years 18 years	Wellington Hotel Wellington With her father in Lambton Street	2 months About 5 years	Episcopalian Church known as St Paul's, Thorndon Flat		August 4th 1856	The Revd Arthur Baker M.A and others
54	13th August 1856	George Percival Douglas Perry Eleanor Barrow	George Percival Douglas Perry Eleanor Barrow 💍 1856/1325	Bachelor Widow	Shoemaker Relict of Charles Barrow, deceased	25 years 25 years	Porirua Road Porirua Road	2 years Upwards of 15 years	Episcopalian Church known as St Paul's situate on Thorndon Flat		September 1st 1856	The Revd Arthur Baker M.A and others

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).