Intentions to Marry, 1866

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840378, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 217

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
12	2 February 1866	Robert Hunter Helen Paul	Robert Hunter Helen Paul 💍 1866/6457	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	30 23	Wellington Wellington	many years many years	St. Peter's Church Te Aro	740		2 February 1866	The Rev. Arthur Stock B. A. and others
13	8 February 1866	Robert Goodlad Hanny Francis Hutty		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 21	Hutt Hutt	4 years many years	Wesleyan Chapel and others	757		8 February 1866	The Rev. William Nathan and others
14	8 February 1866	Leonard Parsons Sarah Jane Hollioake	Leonard Parrant Sarah Jane Hollister 💍 1866/6301	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	33 18	Wellington Wellington	3 days 11 years	Residence of Mrs J. Edmonds Taranaki Place	657	Helen Edmonds, mother	8 February 1866	The Rev. John Moir, and others
15	9 February 1866	James Samuel Paull Caroline Pitford	James Samuel Paull Caroline Petford 💍 1866/6460	Bachelor Spinster	Boatbuilder	25 18	Wellington Wellington	5 years 8 years	St. Peter's Church Te Aro	711	John Pitford, father	26 February 1866	The Rev. Arthur Stock B. A. and others
16	12 February 1866	Charles Henry Lowe Anne Elizabeth Reading	Charles Henry Lowe Anne Elizabeth Reading 💍 1866/6550	Bachelor Spinster	Shopman	21 21	Wellington Wellington	11 years 12 years	Residence of Mr. William Janes Sydney Street	742		12 February 1866	The Rev. Charles Gaters, and others
17	15 February 1866	John Gashew Hanny Walker	John Giskin Fanny Walker 💍 1866/6289 John Maxwell Mary Anne Walker 💍 1866/5005	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 18	Makara Makara	5 years 6 years	St. John's Church Hutt	653	There is no person residing within the Colony authorized by law to give consent to their marriage	15 February 1866	The Rev. John Edward Herring, and others
18	15 February 1866	Samuel Fletcher Harriett Lomas	Samuel Fletcher Harriett Lomas 💍 1866/6553	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	28 about 17	Napier at present Wellington Wellington	about 1 week 9 years	Residence of Joseph Lomas, Golden Mile	743	Joseph Lomas, father	15 February 1866	The Rev. Charles Gaters, 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).