Intentions to Marry, 1864

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840376, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 139

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 March 1864

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
149	8 February 1864	William John Dark Hannah Remnant	William John Dark Hannah Remnant 💍 1864/8148	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Servant of James Remnant Esq.	35 36	Wellington Wellington	6 weeks about 17 years	In the Private Residence of [UNCLEAR] Dark and others	564		8 February 1864	The Rev. John Aldred
150	13 February 1864	John Mee Mary Nichols	John Mee Mary D Nicholl 💍 1864/8139	Widower Widow	Labourer	45 about 40 years	Wellington Wellington	about 18 years about 12 years	Roman Catholic Chapel in Manners Street known as 'St Mary's'	561		[UNCLEAR]	[UNCLEAR]
151	16 February 1864	David Henry Nott Edith Fleming	David Henry Nott Edith Fleming 💍 1864/8142	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	28 22	Wellington Wellington	4 days 4 days	Wesleyan Chapel in Manners Street Wellington	562		16 February 1864	The Rev. John Aldred
152	20 February 1864	Thomas George Matilda Whatton	Thomas Rogerson Matilda Whatton 💍 1864/8151	Bachelor Spinster	Cattle dealer	37 18	Porirua Road Porirua Road	5 months 6 months	Residence of Mr. Joseph Whatton Porirua Road	563	Joseph Whatton, Father of Matilda Whatton	20 February 1864	The Rev. John Aldred
153	22 February 1864	Hugh Sancton Ann Harrison	Hugh Lamont Greer Ann Harrison 💍 1864/4977	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 28	Hutt Valley Wellington	10 years 5 years	Private Residence of Mrs. Matilda Sancton Lambton Quay	566		22 February 1864	The Rev. Joshua Smith
154	9 March 1864	Wallace Laurence Caroline Meyrick	William Laurence Caroline Meyrick 💍 1865/6197	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 23	Wellington Wellington	7 years 7 years	In the Private Residence of The Rev. John Aldred Manners Street			9 March 1864	The Rev. John Aldred

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).