Intentions to Marry, 1879

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840391, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, April 30 2025

Page 938

District of Port Chalmers Quarter ending 30 September 1879

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
16	16 July 1879	Henry Grimsey Mary Ann Welsh	Henry Grimsey Mary Anne Welsh 💍 1879/2434	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 years 20 do	Beach Street Port Chalmers George Street Port Chalmers	2 months 1 week	at the House of Capt. Cowper George Street Port Chalmers	79/2418	Mary Welsh, mother	16 July 1879	Rev. Wm. Finlay
17	17 July 1879	Ernest Godpeed Emily Boleman	Ernest Godfred Emily Coleman 💍 1879/2200	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Porter	30 years 22 do	Beach Street Port Chalmers George Street Port Chalmers	7 days 20 years	at the House of Mr. Holsey	79/2239		17 July 1879	Rev. Wm. Finlay
18	28 July 1879	Thomas William Smith Margaret Ellen Fitzgerald	Thomas William Smith Margaret Ellen Fitzgerald 💍 1879/2203	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	20 do 20 years	do do Island Terrace Port Chalmers	4 do 4 months	at the Congregational Manse Port Chalmers	79/2242	Not to be found, Sarah Smith, mother, Widow	28 July 1879	Rev. Jas. Maxwell
19	1 August 1879	Richard Sefford Faulks Helen Ryall	Richard Letford Faulkner Helen Kydd 💍 1879/2201	Widower Widow	Labourer	45 years 55 do	Purchanui Port Chalmers	8 years 4 months	at the Wesleyan Parsonage Port Chalmers	79/2240		1 August 1879	Rev. Wm. Finlay
20	18 August 1879	Joseph Ryan Theresa Fulton	Joseph Ryan Theresa Sutton 💍 1879/2165	Bachelor Spinster	Cook	28 do 18 years	8 Mitchell Street Dunedin George Street Port Chalmers	8 months 3 years	at the Roman Catholic Church Dunedin	79/2181	Mary Fulton, mother	18 August 1879	Rev. P. O. Leary
21	20 August 1879	Alfred Feast Catherine Sowden	Alfred Feast Louisa Catherine Louden 💍 1879/2202	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	24 years 21 do	Bryant Street Port Chalmers George Street Port Chalmers	6 months 1 year	at the House of Mr. Sowden	79/2241		20 August 1879	Rev. James Maxwell
22	8 September 1879	William Law Guilder Rosanna Hamlyn	William Dow Miller Rosannah Hamlyn 💍 1879/2917	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 years 18 do	Hamilton Bay Lower Harbour Lower Harbour West	2 years 13 do	at the House of Mr. Guilder Hamilton Bay	79/332	Charles Hamlyn, Father	8 September 1879	Rev. Wm. Johnstone

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).