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 305

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 30 September 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
1151	1 July 1864	Thomas Price Amelia Lounds	Thomas Preece Elizabeth Amelia Lownds 💍 1864/6984	Bachelor Spinster	Waiter	39 21	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 days 3 days	Office of Registrar	1161		1 July 1864	James Mowneed
1152	20 July 1864	John George Murray Mary Gebbie	John George Murray Mary Gebbie 💍 1864/7341	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 22	Lincoln District Head of the Bay	13 years 19 years	Mrs Gebbie's house, Head of the Bay	1026		25 July 1864	Rev. Charles Fraser
1153	27 July 1864	Gerhard Crone Annunah Hill	Gerhard Crone Susannah Hill 💍 1864/6960	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	31 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	Previous day 5 years	House of Mr. O. Hill	1152	Mr. O. Hill, father	29 July 1864	Rev. John Crump
1154	9 August 1864	Henry Fuller Eliza Little	Henry Falls Eleanor Jane Little 💍 1864/6963 Henry Dreixler Christina Little 💍 1864/5108	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 20	Lyttelton Lyttelton	8 days 1 year	House	1153	Jane Little, mother	9 August 1864	Rev. George Grant
1155	13 August 1864	William Featherston Mary Douglass	William Feathery Mary Douglas 💍 1864/6906 William Pearson Mary Lucas 💍 1864/7854	Widower Widow	Engine Fitter	35 40	Lyttelton Lyttelton	4 years 1 year	Church of England	1153		19 August 1864	Rev. Francis Knowles
1156	19 August 1864	Henry Zachary Jemima Hall	Henry Zachary Nicholls Jemima Hall 💍 1864/6918	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	35 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	1 year 4 months	Primitive Methodist Church	1137		19 August 1864	Rev. R. Knowles
1157	22 August 1864	Andrew Stewart Mary Ann King	Andrew Sherratt Mary Ann King 💍 1864/6966	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	1 month 2 years	Wesleyan Chapel	1154		22 August 1864	Rev. John Mamp

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).