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 104

District of Kaiapoi Quarter ending 30 June 1857

Date of Notice

Names and Surnames of Parties

BDM Match

Condition

Calling or Profession

Age

Dwelling Place

Length of Residence

Marriage Place

Folio

Consent

Date of Certificate

Officiating Minister

30 March 1857

John Hamilton Ward
Marcia Townsend

In Lyttelton Times - April 15th, at Kaiapoi, by the Rev J Raven, J. Hamilton Ward, to Marcia, daughter of James Townsend, Esq of Rangiora

Bachelor
Spinster

Stockowner

22 years
21 years

Rangiora
Rangiora

2 years
2 years

Kaiapoi Church

14 April 1857

Rev John Raven

No	1
Date of Notice	30 March 1857
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	John Hamilton Ward	Marcia Townsend
	💍 In Lyttelton Times - April 15th, at Kaiapoi, by the Rev J Raven, J. Hamilton Ward, to Marcia, daughter of James Townsend, Esq of Rangiora
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Stockowner
Age	22 years	21 years
Dwelling Place	Rangiora	Rangiora
Length of Residence	2 years	2 years
Marriage Place	Kaiapoi Church
Folio
Consent
Date of Certificate	14 April 1857
Officiating Minister	Rev John Raven

2 April 1857

Henry Jones
Georgiana Pearce

[No matching marriage registration has been located]

Widower
Spinster

Carpenter

33 years
34 years

Kaiapoi
Kaiapoi

3 years
6 months

Kaiapoi Church

30 April 1857

Rev John Raven

No	2
Date of Notice	2 April 1857
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Henry Jones	Georgiana Pearce
BDM Match (8%)
	💍 [No matching marriage registration has been located]
Condition	Widower	Spinster
Profession	Carpenter
Age	33 years	34 years
Dwelling Place	Kaiapoi	Kaiapoi
Length of Residence	3 years	6 months
Marriage Place	Kaiapoi Church
Folio
Consent
Date of Certificate	30 April 1857
Officiating Minister	Rev John Raven

30 April 1857

John [unclear]
Anne Pearce

[No matching marriage registration has been located]

Bachelor
Spinster

Mariner

30 years
38 years

Kaiapoi
Kaiapoi

3 days
3 days

Kaiapoi Church

30 April 1857

Rev John Raven

No	3
Date of Notice	30 April 1857
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	John [unclear]	Anne Pearce
BDM Match (8%)
	💍 [No matching marriage registration has been located]
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Mariner
Age	30 years	38 years
Dwelling Place	Kaiapoi	Kaiapoi
Length of Residence	3 days	3 days
Marriage Place	Kaiapoi Church
Folio
Consent
Date of Certificate	30 April 1857
Officiating Minister	Rev John Raven

30 May 1857

Henry Torlesse
Elizabeth Henrietta Revell

[No matching marriage registration has been located]

Bachelor
Spinster

Stock owner

24 years
21 years

Rangiora
Kaiapoi

4 years
4 years

Kaiapoi Church

13 June 1857

Rev John Raven

No	4
Date of Notice	30 May 1857
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Henry Torlesse	Elizabeth Henrietta Revell
BDM Match (5%)
	💍 [No matching marriage registration has been located]
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Stock owner
Age	24 years	21 years
Dwelling Place	Rangiora	Kaiapoi
Length of Residence	4 years	4 years
Marriage Place	Kaiapoi Church
Folio
Consent
Date of Certificate	13 June 1857
Officiating Minister	Rev John Raven

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 1903. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).