Intentions to Marry, 1860

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840372, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

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

Page 047

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 31 March 1860

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
136	27 January 1860	Daniel Bunday Emily Juden	Daniel Bundy Emily Juden 💍 1860/3397	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker	24 21	Lyttelton Lyttelton	1 year 1 day	Temperance Church Lyttelton			29 January 1860	Rev. Fras. Knwoles
137	29 January 1860	George Mather Rebecca Stoddart	George Mather Rebecca Stoddart 💍 1860/3400	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	23 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	13 months 4 days	Wesleyan Chapel Lyttelton			13 February 1860	Rev. Rowe
138	4 February 1860	Daniel Bunday Emily Juden	Daniel Bundy Emily Juden 💍 1860/3397	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker	24 21	Lyttelton Lyttelton	1 year 1 week	Wesleyan Chapel Lyttelton				Rev. Rowe
139	4 February 1860	William Parkison Elizabeth Hall	"Mr Rowe states he knows nothing of these [parties?]. Appears not married"	Widower Spinster	Whitesmith	28 21	Lyttelton Lyttelton	4 months 6 months	Wesleyan Chapel Lyttelton			6 February 1860	Rev. Rowe
140	4 February 1860	William Sme'clair Ann Hayward	William Sinclair Ann Hayward 💍 1860/3427	Bachelor Spinster	Plasterer	22 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 months 3 months	Temporary Church Lyttelton			4 February 1860	Rev. Fras. Knwoles
141	7 February 1860	James Neale Charlotte Chang	James Neale Charlotte Chaney 💍 1860/1919	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 18	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 years 9 years	Registrars Office Lyttelton		William George [UNCLEAR] (Father)	21 February 1860	Wm Donald Regr
142	13 February 1860	James Wood Barbara Sahagen	James Wood Barbara Gahagan 💍 1860/3403	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	21 20	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 days 8 years	Wesleyan Chapel Lyttelton		Benjamin Sahagen Father	29 February 1860	Rev. Rowe
143	22 February 1860	George Buckley Alexandrine McLean	George Buckley Alexandrina McLean 💍 1860/3534	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	31 27	Lyttelton Waimakariri	13 years 5 years	Residence of J. McLean Christchurch	712		22 February 1860	Rev. C. Frazer
144	23 February 1860	Henry William Younger Amelia Ford	Henry William Younger Amelia Ford 💍 1860/1810	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	26 18	Lyttelton Lyttelton	1 week 9 years	Temperance Church Lyttelton		Augustus Ford Father	27 February 1860	Rev. Fras. Knwoles

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).