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 301

District of Lyttelton 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
14	18 February 1864	Hugh Higgins Janet Gowans	Hugh Higgins Janet Torrance 💍 1864/6978	Widower Spinster	Labourer	33 30	Head of Bay Head of Bay	10 years 1 month	Office of the Registrar	1159	18 Feby	James Townsend Registrar
15	24 Feby	John Downie Elizabeth Beresford	John Downie Elizabeth Newcomb 💍 1864/6876	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer Dom. Serv.	21 20	Lyttelton Lyttelton	11/2 yr. 7 yrs.	Trinity Church	1122	10 March	Rev. J. Knowles
16	16 March	George Gasper Susan Stephen	George Jasper Simmons Susan Stephens 💍 1864/6879	Bach. Spinster	Master mariner	27 18	Legan Lyttelton	4 months	Trinity Church		23 March	Rev. J. Knowles
17	17 March	David Widdicombe Jane Groves	David Williams Jane Groves 💍 1864/6981	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 22	London street Same	4 days	Office of Regr.	1160	19 Mar	James Townsend Registrar
18	19 March	William Nixon Susan Sutherland	William Braving Annie Sutherland 💍 1864/6885	Bachelor Spinster	Dairy farmer	33	Head of Bay Head of Bay	6 years 5 years	Church of Engl.	1126	26	[UNCLEAR]
19	22 March	Joseph Henry Bennett Agnes Cashin	Joseph Henry Bennett Agnes Cashin 💍 1864/7386	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant		Christchurch Lyttelton	3 days	Christ Church and by special license	925		Rev. J. Knowles
20	23 March	Peter Hocking Emma Towns	Peter Hosking Emma Towan 💍 1864/6882	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Dom. Serv.	26 23	Lyttelton Same	7 months 7 months	Trinity Church	1125

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).