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 110

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31st of December 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
70	16 November 1859	John Henry Trask Mary Greer	John Henry Trask Mary Greer 💍 1859/2910	Widower Spinster	Mariner	27 years about 18 years	Wellington Paua Road	7 years 7 years	In the Church at Johnsonville	Agnes Greer, Mother of Mary	1 December 1859	Rev. H. W. St. Hill and others
71	25 November 1859	Joseph Masters Sarah Bowler	Joseph Masters Sarah Bowler 💍 1859/2916	Widower Widow	Farmer Relict of Joseph Bowler deceased	56 years 50 years	Masterton at present Wellington Porirua	4 days about 10 years	The School Room at Pahautanui		26 November 1859	Rev. H. W. St Hill and others
72	30 November 1859	George Henry Wilson Kate Jane Hannon	George Henry Wilson Kate Jane Hannon 💍 1859/2913	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	26 years 22 years	Wellington Wellington	2 1/2 years 2 1/2 years	The Episcopalian Church in Wellington Known as St Peters		5 December 1859	Rev. Arthur Stock B.A. and
73	12 December 1859	George Frederick Swainson Maryanne Arrowsmith	George Frederic Swainson Mary Anne Arrowsmith 💍 1859/2901	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	30 years 26 years	Wellington Hutt	18 years 3 years	The Episcopalian Church at the Hutt Known as St James		7 December 1859	Rev. H. W. St. Hill & others
74	17 December 1859	Thomas Harris Phoebe Ann Rayner	Thomas Harris Phoebe Ann Rayner 💍 1859/2904	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	20 years 19 years	Taita Taita	18 years 5 years	The Private Residence of Abraham Harris at the Hutt	Abraham Harris, Father of Thomas Harris John Rayner, Father of Phoebe Ann Rayner	21 December 1859	Rev. John Thom and others
75	19 December 1859	Charles Estall Harriet Wooldom	Charles Estall Harriet Woouldom 💍 1859/1196	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	26 years 18 years	Wellington Wellington	12 months 18 years	Episcopalian Church in Willis Street Known as St Peters	Henry William Wooldom, Father of Harriet Wooldom	19 December 1859	Rev. Arthur Stock, B.A. & 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 1899. 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).