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 101

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 30 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
44	24 July 1856	John Ratcliffe Cousins Clarinda Adeline Nowth	John Ratcliffe Cousins Clarinda Adeline Roworth 💍 1856/1585	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner -	25 27	Lyttelton Governess Bay	1 Week 6 Weeks	Temporary Church, Lyttelton	24 July 1856	Rev B. W. Dudley
45	29 July 1856	Thomas Wycherley Harriet Ann Sand	Thomas Wycherley Harriett Anne Card 💍 1856/1609	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	40 25	Lyttelton Governors Bay	4 Weeks 4 Weeks	Temporary Church, Lyttelton	29 July 1856	Rev J. C. Corlett
46	30 July 1856	Thomas Dennett Cavey Sarah Ann Browning	Thomas Bennett Cressey Sarah Ann Bunning 💍 1856/1679	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	24 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	1 Month 1 Month	Temporary Church, Lyttelton		Never claimed certificate
47	8 August 1856	Peter Fox Helen Graham	Peter Fox Helen Graham 💍 1856/1664	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	23 28	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 Years 1/2 Years	Wesleyan Chapel, Lyttelton	25 August 1856	Rev John Aldred
48	18 August 1856	John Deans Emma Batham	John Dean Emma Bathurst 💍 1856/1591	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	20 16	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 Years	Temporary Church, Lyttelton	16 September 1856	Rev B. W. Dudley
49	1 September 1856	John Fairlie Moorhouse Eliza Dyer	John Carter Moorhouse Eliza Dyer 💍 1856/1588	Widower Spinster	Farmer	29 30	Hermanford Governments Bay	12 Months	Temporary Church, Lyttelton	9 September 1856	Rev B. W. Dudley
50	9 September 1856	Joseph Foster Amelia Ann Wills	Joseph Foster Amelia Ann Wills 💍 1856/1670	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	21 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	13 Months 1 Month	Wesleyan Chapel, Lyttelton	9 September 1856	Rev John Aldred
51	9 September 1856	Richard Butt Rosina Wells	Richard Butt Rosetta Wells 💍 1856/1667	Bachelor Spinster	Waiter	26 24	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 Weeks	Wesleyan Chapel, Lyttelton	9 September 1856	Rev John Aldred
52	24 September 1856	Thomas Bland Evins Eliza Bothwick	Thomas Orland Evins Eliza Borthwick 💍 1856/1673	Bachelor Widow	Mariner	39 full	Lyttelton Lyttelton Bush	3 Days 8 Months	Wesleyan Chapel, Lyttelton	24 September 1856	Rev John Aldred

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).