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 083

District of Nelson 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
24	21 June 1856	George Madge Taylor Rhoda Withey	[No matching marriage registration has been located]	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	22 20	Town of Nelson Nelson	One year One year	At the Protestant Episcopalian Church	10 July 1856	Henry Francis Butt
26	3 July 1856	John Mack Hutcheson Mary Gome	John Mack Hutcheson Mary Gorrie 💍 1856/1794	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer	36 22	Town of Nelson Bridge Street Nelson	Two years Five years	At the residence of Mr James Gome	3 July 1856	Rev. Thos Dickson Nicholson
27	10 July 1856	Appo Hocton Jenefer Rowling	Appo Horton Janiper Rowlings 💍 1856/1812	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	33 37	Town of Nelson Washington Valley Nelson	Five years Five years	At the residence of Appo Hocton	15 July 1856	Rev. Jno Warren
28	1 August 1856	William Oakes Mary Moynihan	[No matching marriage registration has been located]	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	33 25	Town of Nelson Nelson	Six months Twelve months	At the Protestant Episcopalian Church	16 August 1856	Rev. Henry Francis Butt
29	5 August 1856	Charles Logan Catherine O'Leary	Charles Logan Catherine O'Leary 💍 1856/1797	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	27 30	Richmond Richmond	Waimea East Seven days Waimea East Fourteen days	At the Chapel of the Catholic	5 August 1856	Rev. Marie Antoine Garin
30	21 August 1856	Isaac Freeth Colvia Venables	Isaac Freeth Eliza Venables 💍 1856/1768	Bachelor Spinster	Horse Breaker	24 22	Town of Nelson Nelson	Six weeks Seven days	At the office of the Resident Magistrate	21 August 1856	John Poynter, Registrar of Marriages
31	3 September 1856	Richard Tear Isabella Bird	Richard Tear Isabella Bird 💍 1856/1851	Bachelor Spinster	Excavator	29 30	Town of Nelson Stoke Suburban South	Twelve months Twelve months	At the Protestant Episcopalian Church	25 September 1856	Rev. Henry Francis Butt
32	15 September 1856	George Bennet Emma James	George Bennett Emma James 💍 1856/1554	Bachelor Spinster	Merchants Clerk	21 18	Town of Nelson Nelson	Three years Three years	At the residence of Mr Edward Smallbone
33	15 September 1856	Hans Henry Christian Fanselow Elizabeth Caroline Dorothea Lankow	Hans Henry Christian Fanzelow Elizabeth Caroline Dorothea Lankow 💍 1856/1130	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 21	Waimea East Waimea East	Twelve years Twelve years	At the residence of Henry Lankow, Farmer, Waimea East	15 September 1856	Rev. John William Christopher Heine
34	20 September 1856	Henry Christian Frederick Lange Sophia Catherina Margaretha Backmann	Henry Christian Frederick Lange Sophia Cathrina Margretha Bockmann 💍 1856/1910	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	34 32	Waimea East Waimea East	Ten months Ten months	At the residence of John Frederick Lange	20 September 1856	Rev. John William Christopher Heine
35	30 September 1856	Samuel Bolton Elisabeth Wilson	Samuel Bolton Elizabeth Wilson 💍 1856/1548	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	22 18	Stoke Nelson	Four weeks Four months	At the residence of Samuel Bolton

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).