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 097

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
31	13 June	Charles Edward George Woolton Kezia Ann Streeter	Charles Edward George Wootton Kesia Ann Streeter 💍 1857/2314	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	26 19	Waimea West Waimea West	Five years Four years	School House in Waimea West
32	13 June	Christopher Frank Emma Sophia Haslam	Christopher Frank Emma Sophia Haslam 💍 1857/1974	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Servant	24 18	Town of Nelson Town of Nelson	Five years Five years	At the Chapel of the Catholic Station in Nelson	29 June 1857	Rev A. M. Garin
33	15 June	Archibald Simpson Eliza Bornforth	Archibald Simpson Eliza Bomforth 💍 1857/2333	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 21	Town of Nelson Town of Nelson	Seven years Two years	At the residence of Mr Robert Simpson in Washington Valley	30 June 1857	Rev. T. D. Nicholson
34	18 June	William Steward Childs Agnes Gibson	William Steward Childs Agnes Gibson 💍 1857/2339	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	25 24	Town of Nelson	Two years Five years	At the residence of Margaret Lock, Hardman at the Haven Nelson	18 June 1857	Rev. T. D. Nicholson
35	18 June	Robert Shallcrass Annabella Williamson Jeffrey	Robert Shallcross Annabella Williamson Jeffrey 💍 1857/2311	Bachelor Spinster	Printer Domestic Servant	37 26	Town of Nelson	Two years Six months	At the residence of Wrey Esq, Hardy Street Nelson
36	23 June	James Henry Mary Monaghan	James Henry Mary Monyhan 💍 1857/2328	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Servant	29 24	Town of Nelson	Two years Two years	At the residence of James Henry in Tasman Street Nelson	23 June 1857	Rev. T. D. Nicholson
37	25 June	Alfred Sargent Sarah Price	Alfred Baigent Sarah Price 💍 1857/2262	Bachelor Spinster	Lawyer	23 23	Waimea South	Five years Five years	At the Protestant Episcopalian Church in Nelson	25 June 1857	Rev. H. F. Butt
38	29 June	Joseph Taylor Margaret Reardon	[No marriage registration has been found. Margaret married James Daniel Cavanagh in November - see 1857 page 100 No. 68]	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	28 19	Town of Nelson	Eighteen months Two years	At the Protestant Episcopalian Church in Nelson	29 June 1857	Rev. H. F. Butt

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).