1857 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840369, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 13 2024

Page 096

District of Nelson Quarter ending 30 June 1857

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
S18	26 March 1857	John O'Connor Bridget Leahy	John O'Connor Bridget Leahy 💍 1857/1971	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 17	Waimea West Waimea West	Three years Two years	at the Catholic Chapel in Nelson		9 April	Rev M. A. Garin
17	23 March 1857	Frederick Lyont Matilda Fleeson	Frederick Lyon Matilda Gleeson 💍 1857/1775	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 19	Town of Nelson	Six weeks	at the Protestant Episcopalian Church in Nelson		11 April	Rev H. F. Butt
21	6 April 1857	Alexander Hunter Catherine Impson	Alexander Hunter Catherine Simpson 💍 1857/2336	Bachelor Spinster	Watch maker	24 18	Town of Nelson do	Five years	at the residence of Mr Robert Simpson in Washington Valley Nelson	712	April	Rev J. D. Nicholson
22	8 April 1857	Frederick Busch Sabina Dew	Frederick Busch Sabina Dew 💍 1857/2217	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 19	Waimea East	Five years Three years	at the Protestant Episcopalian Church at Richmond Waimea East	724	24 April	Rev Saml Poole
23	4 May 1857	Isaac Brewerton Elizabeth Lovett	Isaac Brewerton Elizabeth Eves 💍 1857/2293	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer Domestic Servant	23 21	Waimea South Town of Nelson	Five years one year	at the Baptist Chapel in Nelson		20 May	Rev D. Dolamore
24	4 May 1857	Hans Schwass Sophia Rose	Christian Ernst Schwass Anna Sophia Maria Rose 💍 1857/2232	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	26 21	Moutere Waimea East	Nine months Two months	at the residence of Christopher Schwass farmer Waimea East		12 May	Rev J. W. C. Heine
25	14 May 1857	Benjamin Rawlings Mary Doing	Benjamin Rawlings Mary Doig 💍 1857/1014	Widower Widow	Sawyer	31 31	Waimea South Waimea East	Three months Two years	at the Wesleyan Chapel in Nelson		14 May	Rev John Warren
26	14 May 1857	Richard Phipps Eliza Jessop	Richard Phipps Eliza Jessop 💍 1857/2296	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	20 18	Waimea South Waimea East	Five years Six weeks	at the residence of Mr William Jessop, Hope Waimea East		6 June	Rev D. Dolamore
27	23 May 1857	John Rawlings Ann Boddington	John Rawlings Ann Boddington 💍 1857/2320	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	24 22	Fox Hill Waimea South Waimea South	Eighteen months Five years	at the Wesleyan Chapel in Nelson		23 May	Rev John Warren
28	30 May 1857	William Scott Mary Scott	William Scott Mary Scott 💍 1857/2270	Bachelor Widow	Carter	30 30	Bridge Street Nelson	Six months Six months	at the Wesleyan Chapel in Nelson		30 May	Rev John Warren
29	1 June 1857	William Askew Jane Jefford	William Askew Jane Gifford 💍 1857/2330	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 24	Riwaka Waimea East	Five years Five years	at the School House in Appleby Waimea East		1 June	Rev J. D. Nicholson
30	8 June 1857	John Jeffries Emma Lucas	John Jeffries Emma Lucas 💍 1857/1778	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 19	Town of Nelson Town of Nelson	One week Five months	at the Protestant Episcopalian Church in Nelson		8 June	Rev H. F. Butt
516	23 March 1857	John Frederick Henry Lange Louisa Cashman Colet	John Frederick Henry Lange Louise Cathrine Colst 💍 1857/2226	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 27	Waimea East	Six weeks	at the residence of Mr Henry Lange in Waimea East		15 April	Rev W. C. Heine

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).