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 145

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 September 1860

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
32	5 July 1860	John Stewart Barr Grace Fairley	John Stewart Barr Grace Fairley 💍 1860/2824	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	23½ years 21 years 5 months	Otago Otago	for the present Wellington 4 days at present in wellington 4 days	The Office of The Registrar of Marriages in Wellington		5 July 1860	The Registrar of marriages for the District of Wellington and others
33	10 July 1860	Thomas Whitehouse Margaret McGillivray	Thomas Whitehouse Margaret McGillivray 💍 1860/2830	Bachelor Spinster	Shopman	24½ years about 20 years	Wellington Wellington	19 years about 5 years	In the church known as 'St Peter's' in Willis street, Wellington	No person within the Colony authorised to give consent to the marriage of Margaret Mc Gillivray	10 July 1860	The Rev. Arthur Stock, B. A. and others
34	31 July 1860	James Lessington Henrietta Wright	James Lessington Henrietta Wright 💍 1860/2815	Widower Widow	Labourer School mistress	42 years about 33 years	Karori Road Karori	20 years about 8 years	St Paul's Church Thorndon		25 August 1860	The Rev. C. H. S. Nicholls, and others
35	31 July 1860	William Henry Meek Rebecca Richardson	William Henry Meek Rebecca Richardson 💍 1860/2833	Bachelor Spinster	mercantile blank	24 years 23 years	Wellington Wellington	2 years 6 months	St Paul's Church Thorndon		31 July 1860	The Rev. G. H. S. Nicholls, and others
36	4 August 1860	Simon Moar Cecilia Rush	Simon Moar Cecelia Rush 💍 1860/2836	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	22 years 18 years	Wellington Kai-warra	8 months many years	Roman Catholic Church, known as 'St Mary's' - near Wellington	The consent of Cecilia Rush, the mother	8 August 1860	The Rev. Father in God Bishop Viard, and others
37	8 August 1860	Duncan MacLachlan Isabella Morison	Duncan MaClachlan Isabella Morrison 💍 1860/2839	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	36 years 23 years	Mataikuna Wellington	at present Wellington 3 days 12 months	The private residence of Mr. Alexander Cameron at Kai-warra		8 August 1860	The Rev. John Moir, and others
38	16 August 1860	John Dixon Margaret East	John Dixon Margaret East 💍 1860/2818	Bachelor Spinster	Brewer	21 years 8 months 28 years	Wellington Wellington	18 years 18 months	The church of England in Willis Street, known as 'St Peter's'		16 August 1860	The Rev. A. Stock, B. A. 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).