1865 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840377, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 182

District of Wellington Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
8	8 February 1865	Thomas Hodgson Amelia Johnson	Thomas Hodgson Amelia Johnson 💍 1865/6089	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	26 Full age	Wellington Wellington	3 days 6 weeks	St Peter's Church	672		February 6th 1865	The Rt. Rev. Arthur Stock, and others
9	February 16th 1865	James Townsend Edwards Rebecca Jane Chiene	James Townsend Edward Rebecca Jane Chiene 💍 1865/6056	Bachelor Spinster	Resident Magistrate	Full age Full age	Wellington Marori	4 years 18 months	St. Paul's Church	658		February 16th 1865	The Right Rev. the Bishop of Wellington, and others
10	February 18th 1865	Charles Merritt Rachael Epps	Charles Merritt Rachael Epps 💍 1865/3953	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	31 20	City of Wellington City of Nelson	2 months 19 years	Residence of Thomas Epps Nurseryman	914	Thomas Father	February 18th 1865	The Rev. Edward Thomas, (of Nelson), and others
11	February 24th 1865	Anthony Hall Charlotte Elizabeth Stacey	Anthony Wall Charlotte Elizabeth Stace 💍 1865/6302	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 21 years & upwards	Porirua Pahautanui	22 years 17 years & upwards	Church of England	750		February 24th 1865	The Rev. H. R. Kill, and others
12	February 25th 1865	Alexander Ards Elizabeth Dixon	Alexander Ards Elizabeth Dixon 💍 1865/6245	Bachelor Widow	Gardener	34 44	Wellington Wellington	4 months Many years	Residence of Joseph Dixon	730		February 25th 1865	The Rev. Isaac Harding and others
13	February 27th 1865	Thomas Watson Rhoda Ann Fawcett	Thomas Watson Rhoda Ann Fawcett 💍 1865/6152	Bachelor Spinster	Mechanic	25 19	Wellington Karori	6 months 15 years	Residence of William Fawcett, at Karori	696	William Fawcett Father	March 14th 1865	The Rev. Jas. Sterling Muir, and others
14	March 4th 1865	William Stephen Seymour Mary Rose	William Stephen Seymour Mary Rose 💍 1865/6257	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	27 17	Wellington Wellington	1 year & upwards about 2 years	Residence of John Rose	704	John Rose Father	March 4th 1865	The Rev. William Will Fell, and others

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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).