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 098

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 March 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
102	27 January 1859	Frederick John Liffen Lucy Eleanor Monteith	Frederick John Tiffen Lucy Eleanor Monteith 💍 1859/2765	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer	29 years 19 years	Ahuriri at present Wellington Wellington	6 days many years	The Episcopalian Church in Wellington known as St Peters	George Dalrymple Monteith (Father)	29 January 1859	The Revd Arthur Stock B. A. and others
103	10 February 1859	Richard Okey Jane Seymour	"Certificate not included in this Quarter"	Bachelor Widow	Iron Moulder Relict of Thomas Seymour, deceased	25 years 25 years	Thorndon Flat Wellington	2 years 2 years	Primitive Methodist Chapel, Sydney Street
104	11 February 1859	William Bettany Elizabeth Scott	William Bettany Betsy Scott 💍 1859/2750	Widower Spinster	Labourer	33 years 34 years	Wellington Wellington	1 year 6 months 18 months	The Primitive Methodist Chapel in Sydney Street		23 March 1859	The Revd Joshua Smith and others
105	15 February 1859	Augustus Yelverton Eliza Jane Ridge	Augustus Yelverton Eliza Jane Ridge 💍 1859/2747	Bachelor Spinster	Corporal in the armed Police	26 years 21 years	Wellington Wellington	2 years 3 years	The Wesleyan Chapel in Manners Street		2 March 1859	The Revd James Buller and others
106	16 February 1859	Adolph Culeus Swanson Jeannette Daybourn	Adolph Euleus Swanson Jeannette Daybourn 💍 1859/2756	Bachelor Widow	Mariner	27 years 34 years	Ship 'Kinnaird' Port of Wellington Wellington	9 days 1 days	Residence of Fredk Bills Tinakori Road		16 February 1859	The Revd Joshua Smith and others
107	26 February 1859	James Morshead Matilda Brown	James Morshead Symons Matilda Brown 💍 1859/2753	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 years 29 years	Ohrio Wellington	1 month 4 years	The office of the Registrar of Marriages in Wellington		23 March 1859	John Elisha Smith Esq and others
108	1 March 1859	John Fitchett, Junior Harriett Ann Watts	John Fitchett Harriett Ann Watts 💍 1859/2829	Bachelor Spinster	Wheelwright	24 1/2 years 21 years	Willis Street Wellington Lambton Quay Wellington	17 years 17 years	Private Residence of Mr William Watts Tinakori Road			Certificate not issued in this Quarter
109	9 March 1859	John Scott Martha Till	John Scott Martha Till 💍 1859/2838	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	32 years 31 years	Wellington Wellington	4 years 12 months	The Primitive Methodist Chapel in Sydney Street		1 April 1859	The Revd Joshua Smith 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).