Intentions to Marry, 1863

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840375, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 4 2024

Page 288

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 31 December 1863

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
47	25 November 1863	Thomas David Mackay Emma Palmer	Thomas David MacKay Emma Palmer 💍 1863/5964	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	24 19	London St, Lyttelton Saville	1 year 2 years	Office of the Registrar, Lyttelton	David Palmer, Father of E. Palmer	25 November 1863	James Townsend, Registrar
48	26 November 1863	Joseph Abbott Mary Ann Cosgrove	Joseph Abbott Mary Ann Cosgraves 💍 1863/3691	Bachelor Spinster	Ship Steward Domestic Servant	24 25	Dublin St, Lyttelton Same place	2 months 3 months	Town Hall Buildings			Rushton, Claude Cherry
49	1 December 1863	William Gibbon Elizabeth Allright	William Gibbons Elizabeth Allwright 💍 1863/5943 William Mitchell Elizabeth Parish 💍 1863/4328 William Tulloch Elizabeth Clark 💍 1863/3364 William Holt Elizabeth Murphy 💍 1863/3793 William Rawson Elizabeth Brice Haines 💍 1863/3528 William Shields Elizabeth Muir 💍 1863/4627	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	28 21	Canterbury St Sumner road	4 months 12 years	Wesleyan Chapel		2 December 1863	Joseph T. Mall
50	21 December 1863	Samuel Henry Elizabeth Macartney Thomson	Samuel James Henry Elizabeth Macartney Thomson 💍 1863/5922	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	31 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	12 years 14 days	Primitive Ch, Lyttelton		21 December 1863	Rev. F. Knowles
51	23 December 1863	John Green Bridget Taylor	John Green Bridget Taylor 💍 1863/6281	Widower Widow	Mariner	33 32	Lyttelton Lyttelton	14 years 5 years	Trinity Church		23 December 1863	Rev. F. Knowles
52	26 December 1863	James Hewitt Sarah Kite	James Hewitt Sarah Kite 💍 1863/5940 James Dew Jane Kite 💍 1863/5949	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	25 18	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 days 4 years	Wesleyan Ch. Lyttelton	No person having authority to consent	26 December 1863	Rev. J. T. Shaw
53	29 December 1863	Arthur Buckland Mary Ann Thompson		Bachelor Spinster	Wharf-inger	27 17	Lyttelton do	9 months 3 years	House on Wharf	Sarah Thompson, mother	30 December 1863	Rev. J. P. Shaw
54	30 December 1863	Malcolm McDougall Isabella Gray	Malcolm MacDougall Isabella Gray 💍 1864/3916	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	33 24	Lyttelton do	1 month 1 month	House occupied by bride		30 December 1863	Rev. J. P. Shaw

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).