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 062

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 December 1856

Continuation for the District of Wellington

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
72	17 October 1856	Arthur Stock Sarah Frances Simson	Arthur Stock Sarah Frances Johnson 💍 1856/1334	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	33 years 24 years	Willis Street Porirua Road	About 3 months Upwards of 13 days	Episcopalian Church known as "St Paul's" situate at Thorndon		October 17th	The Honorable The Archdeacon of Kapiti and others
73	21 October 1856	John Connor Mary Ann Marsh	John O'Connor Mary Anne Marsh 💍 1856/1397	Bachelor Spinster	Corporal in the Armed Police Dressmaker	30 years 30 years	Wellington Wellington	2 months About 18 months	Roman Catholic Chapel situate in Boulcott Street		October 21st	J. J. P. O'Reilly, & others
74	28 October 1856	George Henry Fennell Elizabeth Mary Mills	George Henry Vennell Elizabeth Mary Mills 💍 1856/1284	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Daughter of Charles Mills	27 years 19 years	Tinakori Road Tinakori Road	About 8 years Upwards of 14 years	Episcopalian Church known as "St Paul's" situate in Wellington		November 12th	Arthur Baker M.A. & others
75	31 October 1856	William McLean Jane Emily Baker	William McLeod Bannatyne Jane Emily Baker 💍 1856/1340	Bachelor Widow	Merchant	38 years About 35 years	Tinakori Road Thomdon Flat	13 years Upwards of 14 years	Episcopalian Church known as "St Paul's" situate at Thorndon		October 31st	Arthur Baker M.A. & others
76	1 November 1856	James Symonds Mary Withers	James Daymond Mary Withers 💍 1856/806	Bachelor Spinster	Cooprer	47 years 40 years	Lambton Quay Murphy Street	Upwards of 15 years About 5 years	Residence of James Symonds, Oriental Bay		November 1st	William Kirton, & others
77	1 November 1856	Robert Elijah Bannister Sarah Martin	Robert Elijah Bannister Sarah Martin 💍 1856/1337 Lewis Dawson Sarah Martin 💍 1856/1460	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk in H. M. Customs Daughter of David Martin, Wellington, Wheelwright	27 years 20 years	Lambton Quay Clergyman Street	About 16 years About 14 years	Episcopalian Church known as "St Paul's" situate at Thorndon	David Martin, father of bride	November 1st	Arthur Baker M.A. & 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).