Intentions to Marry, 1859

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840371, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 12 2024

Page 107

District of Wellington Quarter ending thirtieth of September 1859

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
57	31st August 1859	Joseph Gigger Elizabeth Bassett	Joseph Gigger Elizabeth Bassett 💍 1859/1247	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	34 years 18 years	Hutt With her Father Hutt Road	4 years about 18 years	The private residence of Mr Bassett	William Bassett The Father of Elizabeth Bassett	1859 31st Aug	The Rev. Jonathan Innes and others
58	1859 5th Sept	John Masters Eliza Eglinton	John Masters Eliza Eglinton 💍 1859/2862	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	23 years 27 years	Hutt Wellington	16 years 18 years	In the Episcopalian Church in Wellington known as "St Peters"		1859 21st Sept	The Rev. Arthur Stock and others
59	1859 8th September	Edward Harris Mary Ann Daysh	Edward Harris Mary Ann Daysh 💍 1859/2865	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 years 20 years	Taitai Taitai	about 16 years about 16 years	Private residence of Mrs Margaret Cooper, Taitai	John Daysh The Father of Mary Ann Daysh	1859 9th Sept	The Rev. John Thom and others
60	1859 8th Sept	Richman Daysh Janet Cooper	Richman Daysh Janet Couper 💍 1859/2868	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 years 20 years	Taitai Taitai	about 16 years 6 or 7 years	Private residence of Mrs Margaret Cooper, Taitai	Margaret Cooper The Mother of Janet Cooper	1859 9th Sept	The Rev. John Thom and others
61	1859 12th Sept	John Howerday Emma Pike	John Flowerday Emma Pike 💍 1859/2871	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	24 years 17 years	Wellington Wellington	2 1/2 years 17 years	Episcopalian Church known as "St Peters" Wellington	William Pike The Father of Emma Pike	1859 18th Sept	The Rev. Arthur Stock and others
62	1859 15th September	George London Mary Ann Kennedy	George London Mary A Kennedy 💍 1859/2859	Bachelor Spinster	Store keeper	30 years 18 years	Poirua Poirua	18 years many years	The Roman Catholic Chapel in Manners Street, Wellington	J. J. P. O'Reilly The Guardian of Mary Ann Kennedy	1859 26th Sept	The Rev. J. J. P. O'Reilly and others

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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).