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 381

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
86	28th September 1865	William Towkins Maria Sunderland	William Tonkin Maria Smitham 💍 1865/7778	Bachelor Widow	Mariner	24 26	Lyttelton Lyttelton	4 months 1 month	Church Lyttelton		1st October 1865	Rev. Francis Knowles
87	11 October 1865	Geo. Frederick Stuart Durath Cooper	George Frederick Smith Sarah Cooper 💍 1865/7775	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 25	Rangiora Head of the Bay	1 year 13 years	Church Kaiapoi		13th October 1865	Rev. Francis Knowles
88	4 Nov.	Charles Hedyman Elexabeth Webb	Charles Hedgman Elizabeth Webb 💍 1865/3977	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 21	Heathcote Valley do	13 years 6 years	Church Lyttelton		18 Nov.	Rev. John Crump
89	24 Nov.	Henry Applewhaite Jane Burrell	Henry Applewhaite Williams Jane Burrell 💍 1865/7781	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 17.75	Lyttelton Do	2 years 14 years	Church Lyttelton	Wm Burrell Father	15 Nov.	Rev. Walter Procter
90	4 Nov.	John Frederick Williams Sarah Ann Falkner	John Franco Sarah Ann Faulkner 💍 1865/7865	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	29 19	Lyttelton do	3 years 2 years	House of Mr Falconer Lyttelton		18 Nov.	Rev. Francis Knowles
91	11 Dec.	William Washington Mary Ann Bott	William Washington Webb Mary Ann Wakelin 💍 1866/8128	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	24 22	Brockley Farm Lyttelton	2 years 14 years	House of Mr Chapman Lyttelton	John Bott Father	22 Dec.	Rev. John Crump
92	12 December 1865	Reginald Orton Jeannie Manson	[No marriage registration has been found. This marriage is confirmed to have taken place (eg, in the Governor's Bay marriage register) but it appears that the paperwork to register the marriage was not submitted to Wellington]	Bachelor Spinster	Stockowner	26 21 3/4	Head of the Bay Head of the Bay	5 years 18 years	Church at Governors Bay		12 Dec.	Rev. Reginald R. Bradley
93	20 December 1865	Henry Barnes Mary Stacey	Henry Baker Mary Stacy 💍 1866/8122	Widower Spinster	Agricultural Labourer	24 22	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 years 14 days	House of Henry Barnes Mount Pleasant Gully		29 December 1865	Rev. John Crump
94	29 Dec.	Richard Collier Annie Gawne	Richard Collier Annie Gavenel 💍 1866/8125	Bachelor Spinster	Colony Man Domestic Servant	24 23	Dampier's Bay Norwich Quay	2 years 2 1/2 years	House of Mr Gawne Lyttelton		30 Dec.	Rev. 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).