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 228

District of Wellington Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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

9 July 1866

Alexander Carmont
Josephine Frances Cleveneaus

Alexander Carmont
Josephine Frances Steveneaux
💍 1866/6517

Bachelor
Spinster

Draper

25 years
19 years

Wellington
Wellington

1½ years
2 years

St Mary's Cathedral

731

John Baptiste Cleveneaus, father

9 July 1866

The Rev. J.B. Sion and others

No	67
Date of Notice	9 July 1866
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Alexander Carmont	Josephine Frances Cleveneaus
BDM Match (95%)	Alexander Carmont	Josephine Frances Steveneaux
	💍 1866/6517
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Draper
Age	25 years	19 years
Dwelling Place	Wellington	Wellington
Length of Residence	1½ years	2 years
Marriage Place	St Mary's Cathedral
Folio	731
Consent	John Baptiste Cleveneaus, father
Date of Certificate	9 July 1866
Officiating Minister	The Rev. J.B. Sion and others

16 July 1866

William Clemon Brown
Elizabeth Straitford

William James Brown
Elizabeth Stratford
💍 1866/6277

Bachelor
Spinster

Carpenter

22 years
18 years

Hutt
Wellington

18 mos
many years

Residence of John Simmons

678

Ann Simmons, mother

4 August 1866

The Rev. Isaac Chardery and others

No	68
Date of Notice	16 July 1866
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	William Clemon Brown	Elizabeth Straitford
BDM Match (85%)	William James Brown	Elizabeth Stratford
	💍 1866/6277
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Carpenter
Age	22 years	18 years
Dwelling Place	Hutt	Wellington
Length of Residence	18 mos	many years
Marriage Place	Residence of John Simmons
Folio	678
Consent	Ann Simmons, mother
Date of Certificate	4 August 1866
Officiating Minister	The Rev. Isaac Chardery and others

18 July 1866

Strachan Harrison
Isabella Rintoul

Wright Harrison
Isabella Rintoul
💍 1866/6328

Bachelor
Spinster

Clerk

35 years
21 years & 8 months

Wellington
Wellington

4 months
2 months

Residence of the said Strachan Harrison

668

18 July 1866

The Rev. John Brown and others

No	69
Date of Notice	18 July 1866
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Strachan Harrison	Isabella Rintoul
BDM Match (82%)	Wright Harrison	Isabella Rintoul
	💍 1866/6328
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Clerk
Age	35 years	21 years & 8 months
Dwelling Place	Wellington	Wellington
Length of Residence	4 months	2 months
Marriage Place	Residence of the said Strachan Harrison
Folio	668
Consent
Date of Certificate	18 July 1866
Officiating Minister	The Rev. John Brown and others

19 July 1866

Joseph Leary
Charlotte Jane Haworth

Joseph Geary
Charlotte Jane Fawcett
💍 1866/6571

Bachelor
Spinster

Blacksmith

21 years & 4 months
21 years & 11 months

Wellington
Thorndon

10 years
2 years

Private Residence of the Rev. Charles Eaton

749

19 July 1866

The Rev. Charles Eaton and others

No	70
Date of Notice	19 July 1866
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Joseph Leary	Charlotte Jane Haworth
BDM Match (87%)	Joseph Geary	Charlotte Jane Fawcett
	💍 1866/6571
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Blacksmith
Age	21 years & 4 months	21 years & 11 months
Dwelling Place	Wellington	Thorndon
Length of Residence	10 years	2 years
Marriage Place	Private Residence of the Rev. Charles Eaton
Folio	749
Consent
Date of Certificate	19 July 1866
Officiating Minister	The Rev. Charles Eaton and others

31 July 1866

Thomas Ray
Eliza Green

Thomas Roy
Eliza Ticeherst
💍 1866/6331

Thomas Rogers
Eliza Grennan
💍 1866/6442

Thomas Foster
Eliza Martin
💍 1866/10110

Thomas Kelly
Eliza Wootton
💍 1866/4399

Bachelor

Carrier

28 years
22 years

Wellington
Wellington

12 years
many years

Residence of the Rev. John Brown

667

3 July 1866

The Rev. John Brown and others

No	71
Date of Notice	31 July 1866
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Thomas Ray	Eliza Green
BDM Match (72%)	Thomas Roy	Eliza Ticeherst
	💍 1866/6331
BDM Match (69%)	Thomas Rogers	Eliza Grennan
	💍 1866/6442
BDM Match (60%)	Thomas Foster	Eliza Martin
	💍 1866/10110
BDM Match (60%)	Thomas Kelly	Eliza Wootton
	💍 1866/4399
Condition	Bachelor
Profession	Carrier
Age	28 years	22 years
Dwelling Place	Wellington	Wellington
Length of Residence	12 years	many years
Marriage Place	Residence of the Rev. John Brown
Folio	667
Consent
Date of Certificate	3 July 1866
Officiating Minister	The Rev. John Brown and others

3 August 1866

Henry Ratcliffe
Eliza Good

Bachelor
Spinster

Cook
House Servant

32 years
22 years

Wellington
Wellington

14 months
2 years

Residence of the Rev. Isaac Harding

667

4 August 1866

The Rev. Isaac Harding and others

No	72
Date of Notice	3 August 1866
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Henry Ratcliffe	Eliza Good
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Cook	House Servant
Age	32 years	22 years
Dwelling Place	Wellington	Wellington
Length of Residence	14 months	2 years
Marriage Place	Residence of the Rev. Isaac Harding
Folio	667
Consent
Date of Certificate	4 August 1866
Officiating Minister	The Rev. Isaac Harding and others

4 August 1866

John Cassels Robison
Sydney Elizabeth Corry

John Cantell Robson
Sydney Elizabeth Goring
💍 1866/6406

Bachelor
Spinster

Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery

25 years
18 years

Auckland
Mawhera

2 weeks
about 6 months

St Paul's Church, Thorndon

693

[UNCLEAR] Corry, father

4 August 1866

The Right Rev. Lord Bishop of Wellington and others

No	73
Date of Notice	4 August 1866
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	John Cassels Robison	Sydney Elizabeth Corry
BDM Match (81%)	John Cantell Robson	Sydney Elizabeth Goring
	💍 1866/6406
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery
Age	25 years	18 years
Dwelling Place	Auckland	Mawhera
Length of Residence	2 weeks	about 6 months
Marriage Place	St Paul's Church, Thorndon
Folio	693
Consent	[UNCLEAR] Corry, father
Date of Certificate	4 August 1866
Officiating Minister	The Right Rev. Lord Bishop of Wellington 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 1903. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).