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 258

District of Nelson Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
51	24 August 1865	Joseph Wood Elizabeth Jennens	Joseph Wood Elizabeth Jennens 💍 1865/6749	Bachelor Spinster	Warehouseman Labourer	26 20	City of Nelson City of Nelson	6 years 20 years	at the residence of Charles Jennens Grove Street	901	Charles Jennens Father	25 August 1865	Rev. William Kirk
52	28 August 1865	Joseph William Redworth Annie Prosser	Joseph William Redworth Annie Prosser 💍 1865/6800	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	31 22	City of Nelson City of Nelson	7 years 3 years	at the residence of Isabella Bailey widow Trafalgar St. Nelson	920		28 August 1865	Rev. Edward Thomas
53	31 August 1865	Joseph Auty Harley Elizabeth Jane Disher	Joseph Marley Elizabeth Jane Disher 💍 1865/6857	Bachelor Spinster	Writing clerk	22 19	City of Nelson City of Nelson	22 years 10 years	at the Trafalgar Hotel Trafalgar St: Nelson	938	Robert Disher Father	31 August 1865	Rev. Patrick Calder
54	5 September 1865	Alexander Russell Annabella Miller	Alexander Rundle Annabella Miller 💍 1865/6854 James Alexander Matthews Isabella Miller 💍 1865/9361	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 23	City of Nelson City of Nelson	1 year 1 year	at the Presbyterian Church in Nelson	937		5 September 1865	Rev. Patrick Calder
55	11 September 1865	James Nelson Close Elizabeth Blanchett	James Nelson Close Elizabeth Blanchett 💍 1865/6893	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	23 21	Happy Valley Suburban North Happy Valley	10 years 12 years	at the Protestant Episcopalian Church in Suburban North	950		21 September 1865	Rev. Geo. Henry Johnstone
56	6 September 1865	Appo Hocton Ellen Smook	Appo Hocton Ellen Snook 💍 1865/6755	Widower Spinster	Carter	42 33	City of Nelson City of Nelson	20 years 18 months	at the residence of said Appo Hocton Washington road	903		6 September 1865	Rev. William Kirk
57	16 September 1865	David Hewerson Murdoch Susan O'Sullivan	David Henderson Murdoch Susan O'Sullivan 💍 1865/6758	Bachelor Spinster	Dealer	26 21	City of Nelson City of Nelson	2 weeks 21 years	at the residence of the Rev. William Kirk Hardy Street Nelson	904		16 September 1865	Rev. William Kirk
58	27 September 1865	Augustus George Brock Lucy Rite	Augustus George Brock Lucy Kite 💍 1865/6803	Bachelor Spinster	Veterinary Surgeon	32 23	Waimea East Waimea East	2 years 20 years	at the residence of Lucy Rite widow Richmond Waimea East	921		27 September 1865	Rev. Edward Thomas

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).