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 118

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 31 March 1857

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
57	3 January 1857	John OBrien Eliza Hunt	John O'Brien Eliza Hurst 💍 1857/2101	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	30 21	Lyttelton Lyttelton	9 weeks 3 weeks	Wesleyan Chapel, Lyttelton	January 3	Rev John Aldred
58	10 January 1857	James Hammons Christina Urquhart	James Hammon Christiana Urquhart 💍 1857/2104	Widower Spinster	Labourer	33 32	Lyttelton Decanterbay	1 month 1 year	Wesleyan Chapel, Lyttelton	January 29	Rev John Aldred
59	17 January 1857	James Scott Elizabeth Jane Cuckson	James Scott Elizabeth Jane Clarkson 💍 1857/2007	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	36 25	Lyttelton Lyttelton	5 years 6 years	Registrars Office, Lyttelton	January 19	William Donald
60	3 February 1857	Walter George Shrimpton Sarah Ann King	Walter George Shrimpton Sarah Anne King 💍 1857/2068	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	19 18	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 years 6 years	Temporary Church, Lyttelton	February 4	Rev B. W. Dudley
61	17 February 1857	Thomas March Mary Ann Hicks	Thomas Marsh Mary Ann Reecks 💍 1857/976 Thomas Watson Mary Ann Calicott 💍 1858/2305	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	23 18	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 days 5 years	Temporary Church, Lyttelton	February 17	Rev B. W. Dudley
62	18 February 1857	Henry Edward Watts Mary Ann Restieaux	Henry Edward Watts Mary Ann Resticaux 💍 1857/2107	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	21 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	7 months 6 years	Wesleyan Chapel, Lyttelton	February 18	Rev John Aldred
63	20 February 1857	George Tayler Eleanor Sophia Leake	George Tayler Ellen Sophia De Chevell Leake 💍 1857/2019	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	24 18	Lyttelton Lyttelton	6 years 6 years	Temporary Church, Lyttelton	March 4	Rev B. W. Dudley
64	20 February 1857	Lyndon Howard Dobie Amelia Thomasina Von Holt	Lyndon Howard Dobie Amelia Thomasina Von Holst 💍 1857/2010	Bachelor Widow	Solicitor	22 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	1 week 6 months	Registrar Office, Lyttelton	February 22	William Donald
65	25 February 1857	Charles Wilson Howard Elizabeth Woledge	Charles Wilson Howard Woledge Elizabeth Wise 💍 1857/2016	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	25 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	14 months 4 months	Temporary Church, Lyttelton	February 27	Rev B. W. Dudley
66	7 March 1857	Charles Lucas Emily Day	Charles Lucas Emily Day 💍 1857/2022	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	21 28	Lyttelton Lyttelton	4 months 1 week	Temporary Church, Lyttelton	March 7	Rev B. W. Dudley

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).