Intentions to Marry, 1869

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840381, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 240

District of Wellington Quarter ending Jan - Mar

Several of these marriages appear on Papers Past: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WI18690420.2.8

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
21	4 March 1869	Edwin Clarke Ellen Sarah Woods	Edwin Clark Ellen Sarah Wood 💍 1869/5751	Widower Widow	Australian Native Hosteling	61 48	Wellington Wellington	4 years 1 year	St. Peters Church	570		6 March 1869	Rev. A. Stoer
22	9 March 1869	Alfred Gulpin Wiggins Annie Carter	Alfred Gilpin Wiggins Annie Carter 💍 1869/6021	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster	34 about 24	Wellington Wellington	6 months 2 years	St. Marys Cathedral, Thorndon	595		24 March 1869	Rev. J. B. Petit
23	10 March 1869	Robert Davies Ellen Lawrence	Robert Davie Ellen Lawrence 💍 1869/5952	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	26 19	Wellington Wellington	5 years 10 years	Residence of Robert Davie, Willis Street	511	Alfred Lawrence, father
24	10 March 1869	James Wallace Laura Frances Evelyn Kensett	James Wallace Laura Francis Evelyn Kensett 💍 1869/5748	Bachelor Widow	Surgeon	39 32	Feathinston at present Wellington Wellington	2 weeks 2 years	St. Peters Church, Te Aro	499		10 March 1869	Rev. A. Stoer
25	15 March 1869	John Kershaw Charlotte Elizabeth Lawrence	John Kershaw Charlotte Eliz Lawrence 💍 1869/5949	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	31 22	Wellington Wellington	10 years 11 years	Residence of Mr Alfred Lawrence, Willis Street	570
26	20 March 1869	Charles Lightwark Maria Rush	Charles Lichtwork Mary Rush 💍 1869/6087	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	nearly 22 19	Taita Taita	about 7 years 19 years	Roman Catholic Church, "St. Peter and St. Pauls", Hutt	611	John George Rush, father
27	23 March 1869	George Cloke Ellen Serafford	George Cloke Ellen Swafford 💍 1869/3958	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	23 21	Wellington Wellington	7 years 3 years	St. Peters Church, Te Aro	501		24 March 1869	Rev. A. Stoer

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).