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 295

District of Lyttelton 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
151	31 December 1861	John Abbott Chaney Mary Ann Browne	John Arbot Chaney Mary Ann Brown 💍 1862/4556	Bachelor Spinster	Stonemason	23 17	Lyttelton Lyttelton	11 years 6 months	Trinity Church		January 4 1862	Revd. Fra
152	23 December 1861	William Wheeler Sarah Ann Smeaton		Widower Spinster	Printer	29 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	5 years 4 months	Trinity Church		January 11 1862	Rev. Fran
153	3rd January 1862	Thomas Turner Lucy Anne Watts	Thomas Turner Mary Anne Watts 💍 1862/3499	Bachelor Widow	Farmer Dressmaker	48 30	Governors Bay Lyttelton	3 years 6 months
154	6th January 1862	Charles Lamb Allsop Catherine Bunker		Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	29 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	1 day 8 years	Trinity Church		6th January 1862	Revd Fra
155	29th January 1862	John Pringle Stewart Anna Barbara Schjott	Mark Pringle Stoddart Anna Barbara Schjott 💍 1862/4 Mark Pringle Stoddart Anna Barbara Schjott 💍 1862/3517	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	42 26	Diamond Harbor O'Rain, bay	5 years 8 months	Temporary church Akaroa		29th Rev. Fra
156	8 February 1862	Mello Schenkel Mira Martha Morly	Mello Schenkel Mira Martha Morey 💍 1862/3496	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	28 10	Selwyn road Selwyn road	12 months 2 months	Wesleyan Church Lyttelton	Edward Mollion, father of bride	February 1862	Revd Fra
157	3rd March 1862	John Taylor Margaret Harris	John Taylor Margaret Norris 💍 1862/3502	Widower Widow	Carpenter	32 24	London St Lyttelton London St Lyttelton	18 months 5 years	Registrar's Office Lyttelton		3rd March James
158	11th March 1862	William Keen Mary Ann Fletcher	William Reed Mary Ann Fletcher 💍 1862/3478	Widower Spinster	Carter Dressmaker	42 42	London St Lyttelton Dublin St Lyttelton	2 years 22 years	Wesleyan Church Lyttelton		11th March Rev. Yor
159	15th March 1862	David Ritchie Harriet Simpson	David Ritchie Harriett Simpson 💍 1862/3481	Widower Widow	Mariner Hospital matron	39 30	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 1/2 years 9 years			15th March Rev. S.L.

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).