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 071

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 June 1857

Continuation of the District of Wellington

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
50	25 May 1857	Richard William Rance Ann Elizabeth Pryke	Richard William Pearse Ann Elizabeth Pryke 💍 1857/1670	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	24 years 22 years	Upper Hutt Upper Hutt	Upwards of 4 months Upwards of 4 months	Episcopalian Church known as "St James' Hutt"		June 15th 1857	The Revd J.B. Hutton Ford
51	1 June 1857	Thomas Frampton Elizabeth Doherty	"Certificate Not issued in this Quarter"	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 years 16 years	Thorndon With her Parents at Thorndon	4 months 12 months	Roman Catholic Chapel, Boulcott Street	[UNCLEAR]	[UNCLEAR]	Certificate Not issued in this Quarter
52	2 June 1857	Henry Robertson Isabella Carter	Henry Robertson Isabella Carter 💍 1857/916	Widower Spinster	Gentleman	27 years 21 years	Wellington With her parents in Wellington	one month Upwards of 15 years	Episcopalian Church situate at the Te Aro known as "Christchurch"	[UNCLEAR]	June 6th 1857	The Revd J.B. Hutton Ford
53	3 June 1857	Joseph Bowler Mary Anne Thrush	Joseph Bowler Mary Ann Hurst 💍 1857/1694	Widower Widow	Gentleman	77 years 57 years	Karori Tawa Flat	About 7 years About 17 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages in Wellington	[UNCLEAR]	June 22nd 1857	Notice withdrawn
54	8 June 1857	Henry Salmond Sarah Field	Henry Salmons Sarah Field 💍 1857/1628	Widower Widow	Labourer	29 years 33 years	Johnsonville Wellington	Upwards of 3 months Upwards of 12 months	Primitive Methodist Chapel in Sydney Street	[UNCLEAR]	June 22nd 1857	The Revd Joshua Smith Ford
55	19 June 1857	John Read Louisa Reither Pine	John Read Louisa Esther Roe 💍 1857/1528	Bachelor Spinster	Baker Domestic Servant	26 years 20 years	Lambton Quay Molesworth St	Upwards of 4 months Upwards of 4 months	Episcopalian Church known as "St Paul's" Thorndon	[UNCLEAR]	[UNCLEAR]	Certificate not issued during this Quarter
56	22 June 1857	Joseph Bowler Mary Anne Auret	Joseph Bowler Mary Ann Hurst 💍 1857/1694	Widower Widow	Gentleman	77 years 57 years	Karori Karori	About 7 years About 7 years	Private residence of the said Jos Bowler, Karori	[UNCLEAR]	June 22nd 1857	The Revd William Kirton Ford

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).