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 377

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 30 June 1865

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
63	29 March 1865	John Erickston Louisa Jane Webb	John Erickson Louisa Jane Webb 💍 1865/7835	Bachelor Spinster	Stock farmer	22 17	Castle Eden Farm do	14 years 15 years	House of Mrs McQueen Castle Eden Farm	Catharine McQueen, mother	10 April 1865	Revd. John Crump
64	31 March 1865	John Morgan Harriet Eaton	John Worgan Harriett Eaton 💍 1865/7748	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	26 19	Lyttelton Lyttelton	23 3/4 years 12 years	Trinity Church		14 April 1865	Revd. Francis Knowles
65	3 April 1865	William Brown Mary McQueen	William Bevins Mary McQueen 💍 1865/7423	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 27	Lyttelton Lyttelton	4 days 7 days	Office of Registrar of Marriages		3 April 1865	Revd. Charles Fraser
66	10 April 1865	John Albert Morgan Emily Susan Parsons	John Albert Morgan Emily Susannah Parsons 💍 1865/7751	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	26 19	Lyttelton Lyttelton	23 3/4 years 12 years	Trinity Church		10 April 1865	Revd. Francis Knowles
67	12 April 1865	John Waters Jessie Annandale	John Waters Jessie Annandale 💍 1865/7868	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 27	Lyttelton Lyttelton	4 days 7 days	Office of Registrar of Marriages		12 April 1865	James Townsend, Registrar of Marriages
68	18 April 1865	Richard Hill Anne O'Rourke	Richard Hill Ann O'Roarke 💍 1865/7754	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Domestic Servant	30 26	Christchurch Lyttelton	1 year 3 years	Trinity, Christchurch		4 May 1865	Revd. Francis Knowles
69	19 April 1865	Joseph Wallace Myna or Minie Pope	Joseph Wallace Minie Pope 💍 1865/7838	Widower Spinster	Storeman Servant	30 23	Lyttelton Lyttelton	23 3/4 years 5 years	House of Mr. Fackrell, Dampier's Bay, Lyttelton		19 April 1865	Revd. John Crump
70	1 May 1865	Thomas Wallace Martin Martha Atkinson	Thomas Wallace Martha Atkinson 💍 1865/7844	Bachelor Spinster	Railway minor	29 18	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 1/2 years 18 3/4 months	House of Mr. Fackrell, Dampier's Bay, Lyttelton	Thomas Atkinson, father	1 May 1865	Revd. John Crump
71	1 May 1865	George Walter Drake Eleanor Agnes Dunn		Bachelor Spinster	Builder	24 20	Lyttelton Sumner	1 day 3 years	House of Mr Robert Turner at Sumner	Robert Turner, father	9 May 1865	Revd. John Crump
72	17 May 1865	James Henderson Wilson Jane Chell	James Henderson Wilson Jane Chell 💍 1865/7850	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	29 18	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 years 1 1/4 years	House of Mr. James Godley, Quay, Lyttelton	Declaration of no authorised person in colony	21 May 1865	Revd. John Crump

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).