1862 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840374, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 11 2024

Page 191

District of Hawkes Quarter ending 31 March 1862

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
1	3 January 1862	John Low Charlott Lenie		Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Nil	21 15	Petane Wairow	6 years 15 years	Mr Dwelley, Mr I. Mccarty, Petane	1002	William Lenie, Father	15 January 1862	Revd Peter Barclay
2	14 January 1862	Alexander Orvies Anne Lamond	Alexander Irvine Anne Lamond 💍 1862/4148	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant Nil	40 30	Carlyle St, Napier Carlyle St, Napier	15 months 1 day	Residence of Mr. I. Steven, Carlyle St, Napier			15 January 1862	Revd Peter Barclay
3	24 January 1862	Charles Molony Mary Ormsby	Charles Moloney Mary Carmody 💍 1862/4314	Bachelor Widow	Captain Domestic Servant	26 26	Las Brown Barracks, Napier Chaucer Road, Napier	1 year 2 years	Roman Catholic Chapel, Shakespeare Road, Napier			27 January 1862	Revd John Forest
4	31 January 1862	Alfred Valentine Harrison Hannah Dean	Alfred Valentine Harrison Hannah Dean 💍 1862/4296	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Domestic Servant	24 22	Waimarama Clive	2 years 10 years	Episcopalian Church, Clive	51		3 February 1862	Revd W. J. Habills
5	14 February 1862	Henry Sargeut Margaret Fitzgerald	Henry Sargent Margaret Fitzgerald 💍 1862/4157	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker Domestic Servant	25 22	Hastings St, Napier Shakespeare Road, Napier	9 months 2 years	Residence of Mr H. Sargeut, Hastings Street, Napier			17 February 1862	Revd Peter Barclay
6	14 February 1862	Samuel Windsor Harriett Maria Slater	Samuel Winsor Harriet Maria Slater 💍 1862/4151	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker Domestic Servant	32 20	Carlyle St, Napier Dalton Street, Napier	5 years 2 years	Residence of Mr Slater, Dalton Street, Napier		Ann Slater, Mother	17 February 1862	Revd Peter Barclay
7	17 February 1862	Henry Smith Hannah Bull	Henry Smith Hannah Brill 💍 1862/4154	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	28 25	Waihou River Waihou Street, Napier	5 months 6 weeks	Residence of Mr C. Lynn, "Victoria Hotel", Racecourse, Napier			20 February 1862	Revd Peter Barclay
8	26 March 1862	Alexander St. Clair Inglis Maria Lambert	Alexander Sinclair Inglis Maria Lambert 💍 1862/4305	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer Nil	32 24	Woodbourne, near Havelock Havelock Road, near Havelock	7 years 4 years	Residence of Captain Lambert, Havelock Road	249		27 March 1862	Revd C. S. Wheeler

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).