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 054

District of [UNCLEAR] Quarter ending 30 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
41	7 May 1856	Henry Parker Eleanor Hannah Aston	Henry Parker Eleanor Hannah Aston 💍 1856/1313	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 1/2 years 21 1/2 years	River Hutt Lambton Quay	Fifteen years About 18 months	Episcopalian Church known as "St Paul's" situate in Thorndon Flat	7 May 1856	Arthur Baker M.A. & others
42	12 May 1856	Henry Joseph Harris Mary Ann Sarah Jells	Henry Joseph Harris Mary Anne Sarah Sells 💍 1856/1382	Bachelor Spinster	Private in the 65th Regiment Domestic Servant	23 years 21 years	Mount Cook Barracks Mount Cook Barracks	Six months Six years	Roman Catholic Chapel known as St Mary's	May 27th 1856	The Revd J.P. O'Reilly & others
43	19 May 1856	Robert Ruddy Ann Picking	Robert Ruddy Ann Dockery 💍 1856/1385	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	27 years 17 years	Lambton Quay Wellington Town Belt	4 1/2 years 14 years	Roman Catholic Chapel known as St Mary's situate at Te Aro	May 19th 1856	J.P. O'Reilly & others
44	23 May 1856	John Lewis Lelia McArdle	John Lewis Celia McHardie 💍 1856/2006	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	28 years 24 years	Wainui Wainui Road	About 6 months About 13 months	Private residence of Thomas Cayley on the Wainui Road	June 16th 1856	James Buller & others
45	27 May 1856	Richard Edward Purse Charlotte Still	Richard Edward Pearse Charlotte Hill 💍 1856/1249	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 years 18 years	Hutt With her Father	15 years About 15 years	Private Residence of Mr Lewis Still at the Hutt	May 27th 1856	The Revd Charles Green & others
46	31 May 1856	Richard Davis Sarah Ann Richardson	Richard Davis Sarah Anne Richardson 💍 1856/1361	Bachelor Spinster	Publican	25 years 23 years	Willis Street, Wellington A resident at Lyttleton with her Father Thomas Richardson in Willis Street	Upwards of 7 years Upwards of 14 years	Episcopalian Church known as St Peters situate in Willis Street	May 31st 1856	The Revd Samuel Poole M.A. & others
47	17 June 1856	Charles Spurgeon Susan Johnston	Charles Spurgin Susan Johnston 💍 1856/2029	Bachelor Spinster	Corporal 65th Regiment Domestic Servant	29 years 27 years	Mount Cook Barracks Dixon Street	18 months Upwards of 4 years	Private Residence of the Revd Mr William Hinton, Wellington Terrace	Certificate not yet issued

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).