Intentions to Marry, 1874

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840386, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 313

District of Wellington Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
93	3 June 1874	George Mayo Rebbell Jessie Lamonby formerly Tulloch	George Mayo Kebbell Jessie Lamont 💍 1874/7786	Bachelor Widow	Clerk [UNCLEAR]umont Wellington	32 30	Wellington Wellington	18 yrs 9 yrs	House of Mr Webb	74/651		June 1874	Rev. J. Moir
94	June 1874	James Edward Rumble Lucy Walker	James Rumble Lucy Walker 💍 1874/10393	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	23 18	Hutt Hutt	23 yrs 18 yrs	Roman Catholic Church
95	June 2 1874	Edward Herbert Hearle Mary Ann Williams	Edward Herbert Hearle Mary Ann Williams 💍 1874/11164	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer [UNCLEAR]red Rowe Karori Carter Street	26 17	Wellington Karori	12 mo 12 mo	House of Mr Hersh Molesworth Street	1802	Hannah Rowe Mother	June 16	Rev. W. J. West George
96	June 2 1874	Charles Frederick Henry Manssen Emma Eliza Marriott	Charles Frederick Henry Manssen Emma Elizabeth Marris 💍 1874/7804	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	26 21	Wellington Wellington	6 mo 3 days	House of Oliver Carter Willis Street	74/657		June 2	Rev. C. Morley Wes
97	June 2 1874	James Alexander Nathaniel Salmon Rosetta Martin	James Alexander Nathaniel Salmon Rosetta Martin 💍 1874/7756	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk [UNCLEAR] of Martin Wellington [UNCLEAR]urch	25 24	Wellington Wellington	9 yrs 24 yrs	St Pauls Church	74/639		June 2	Rev. B. Harvey Leo.?
98	June 5 1874	Arthur Edward Grinsted Maria Agnes Nelson	Arthur Edward Grimstone Maria Agnes Nelson 💍 1874/7771	Bachelor Spinster	[UNCLEAR]ight	32 21	Wellington Kaiwarra	2 yrs 2½ yrs	Roman Catholic Cathedral	74/646		June 19	Rev. J. B. Petit Jean
99	June 8 1874	Lars Andersson Hanne Maria Larsen	Carl Anderson Hanne Marie Larsen 💍 1874/10336	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Servant	29 21	Wellington Wellington	14 mo 10 mo	House of Rev. J. Moir	1521		June 22	Rev. J. Moir

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).