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 081

District of Nelson Quarter ending June 1856

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
10	2 April 1856	John Hastie Margaret Dron	John Hastie Margaret Dron 💍 1856/1842	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	28 19	Wairau Waimea West	Four years Four years	at the residence of Mr John Dron, Waimea West	5 April 1856	Reverend Thomas Dickson Nicholson
11	8 April 1856	William Vant Harriet Maria Bomforth	William Vant Harriet Maria Bomforth 💍 1856/1901	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 27	Brook Street Valley Town of Nelson	Three years Three years	at the Protestant Episcopalian Church in Nelson	23 April 1856	Reverend Henry Francis Butt
12	15 April 1856	Thomas Whitwell Ann Gaukroger	Thomas Whitwell Ann Gaukroger 💍 1856/1830	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	26 22	Town of Nelson do	Three years Five years	at the residence of Mr Thomas Whitwell Waimea Road Nelson	29 April 1856	Reverend Thomas Dickson Nicholson
13	15 April 1856	Frederick William Freeman Margaret Ross	Frederick William Freeman Margaret Ross 💍 1856/1827	Bachelor Spinster	House Carpenter	21 21	Town of Nelson do	Five years Five years	at the residence of Mr Samuel Adams Haven Road Nelson	29 April 1856	Reverend Thomas Dickson Nicholson
14	24 April 1856	John Ryan Ann McGee	John Ryan Ann McGee 💍 1856/1800	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	21 23	Massacre Bay	Twelve months	at the Chapel of the Catholic Station in Nelson	24 April 1856	Reverend Marie Antoine Garin
15	26 April 1856	Henry Allen Bridget Crawford	Henry Allen Bridget Crawford 💍 1856/1845	Widower Widow	Sawyer	39 42	Appleby Appleby	Three months Three months	at the residence of Mr Bridget Crawford Appleby in Waimea East	10 May 1856	Reverend Thomas Dickson Nicholson
16	28 April 1856	Edward Challies Elizabeth Clark	Edward Challies Elizabeth Clark 💍 1856/1839	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	26 30	Waimea West do	Four years Ten years	at the residence of Mr Henry Challies in Waimea West	28 April 1856	Reverend Thomas Dickson Nicholson
17	2 May 1856	Archibald McCollum Margaret Hamilton	Archibald McCallum Margaret Hamilton 💍 1856/1833	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	26 26	Wairau Town of Nelson	Twelve months Six months	at the residence of Mr Robert Stooker Bridge St Nelson	2 May 1856	Reverend Thomas Dickson Nicholson
18	6 May 1856	Amos Hammond Catherine Harvey	Amos Hammond Catherine Harvey 💍 1856/1806	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Servant	23 21	Waimea East Stoke	Twelve months Six months	at the residence of Mr Andrew Henderson, Butcher Stoke	6 May 1856	Reverend John Warren
19	9 May 1856	Henry Robinson Young Caroline Phipps	Henry Robinson Young Caroline Phipps 💍 1856/1836	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	21 22	Town of Nelson do	Two years Two years	at the residence of Mr Henry Robinson Young in Nelson	9 May 1856	Reverend Thomas Dickson Nicholson
20	7 June 1856	Hector Mathieson Jane Richardson	Hector Mathieson Jane Richardson 💍 1856/1848	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	24 23	Town of Nelson do	Fourteen days Fourteen days	at the residence of Mr John Steel Washington Valley	7 June 1856	Reverend Thomas Dickson Nicholson
21	13 June 1856	Joseph Foord Wilson the Younger Madelena Sinclair	Joseph Foord Wilson Madelena Sinclair 💍 1856/1904	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer	26 20	Wairau Valley Town of Nelson	Three years Five years	at the Protestant Episcopalian Church in Nelson	13 June 1856	Reverend Henry Francis Butt
22	16 June 1856	Joseph Craig Louisa Wood	Joseph Craig Louisa Wood 💍 1856/1809	Bachelor Spinster	Ropemaker	22 20	Spring Grove do	Ten days One month	at the residence of James Wood Carpenter Spring Grove	16 June 1856	Reverend John Warren
23	18 June 1856	Samuel Newport Susan Whiting	Samuel Newport Susan Whiting 💍 1856/1907	Widower Spinster	Inn Keeper	50 35	Brook Street Valley Brook Street Nelson	Five years Five weeks	at the Protestant Episcopalian Church in Nelson	18 June 1856	Reverend Henry Francis Butt

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).