Intentions to Marry, 1871

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840383, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, November 15 2024

Page 246

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 March 1871

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
7	13 January 1871	John Yarnold Edith Lee	John Garnold Edith Lee 💍 1871/5004	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	34 20	Upper Hutt Upper Hutt	13 years many years	Frensham Parsonage, Upper Hutt	71/371		28 January 1871	Rev. Thomas Fancourt
8	16 January 1871	William Morgan Mary Ann Packham	William Morgan Mary Ann Peckham 💍 1871/4845	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 20	Tawa Flat Tawa Flat	25 years 20	Primitive Methodist Chapel, Sydney Street	71/372	William Packham, father	16 January 1871	Rev. John Dumbell
9	17 January 1871	James Cunningham Susan Aston	James Cunningham Susan Aston 💍 1871/4848	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	36 24	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 months	Residence of the Rev. John Moir, Woolcombe Street	71/318		17 January 1871	Rev. John Moir
10	18 January 1871	Denison Cochran Barbara Hutchinson	Denison Cochran Barbara Huchinson 💍 1871/4851	Bachelor Widow	Solicitor	41 40	Brougham Street, Wellington Brougham Street, Wellington	17 years 18	Residence of Rev. John Moir, Woolcombe Street, Wellington	71/319		18 January 1871	Rev. John Moir
11	19 January 1871	Henry Frederic Norris Charlotte Emma Borlase	Henry Frederic Norris Charlotte Emma Borlase 💍 1871/8190	Bachelor Spinster	Surgeon	26 23	Wellington Thorndon, Wellington	four months twelve years	St Paul's Cathedral, Thorndon	71/2469		19 January 1871	Right Rev. Lord Bishop of Wellington
12	24 January 1871	William Baker Amy Robertson	William Baker Amy Robertson 💍 1871/4902 William Moss Jessie Robertson 💍 1871/6342	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 20	Karori Wellington	22 years 14	Residence of Mr. David Robertson, Thorndon	71/388	David Robertson, father	8 February 1871	Rev. W. Dean
13	24 January 1871	Edwin Walter Woodhouse Mary Furness	Edwin Walter Woodhouse Mary Furness 💍 1871/4968	Bachelor Spinster	Letter Carrier	24 20	Wellington Wellington	5 years 20	Residence of Mr. Smith Furness, Ghuznee Street	71/1359	Laurel Furness, father	30 January 1871	Rev. Thomas Buddle

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

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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).