Intentions to Marry, 1885

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840397, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, April 30 2025

Page 1000

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 March 1885

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
73	16 March 1885	Guiseppe Vittorio Eugenio Calcina Argia Maria Savieri	Guissepi Vittorio Eugenis Calcinai Argia Maria Savieri 💍 1885/604	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	23 16	Wellington Wellington	years years	Registrar's office, Wellington	85/345	Ettore Savieri, Mother	16 March 1885	W. I. Wyatt
74	17 March 1885	Guiseppe Vittorio Eugenio Calcina Argia Maria Savieri	Guissepi Vittorio Eugenis Calcinai Argia Maria Savieri 💍 1885/604	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	23 16	Wellington Wellington	years years	St. Mary's Cathedral	85/318	Ettore Savieri, Mother	17 March 1885	Rev. John McKenna, R.C.P.
75	19 March 1885	James William Lee Elizabeth Bell	James William Lee Elizabeth Bell 💍 1885/372	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	28 21	Wellington Wellington	years years	House of Ah Ting, Tory Street	85/369		19 March 1885	Rev. J. J. Penarcey, Minister
76	19 March 1885	Andrew Bell Sarah Brother	Andrew Bell Sarah Crowther 💍 1885/1397	Bachelor Spinster	Fellmonger	22 26	Kaiwarra Kaiwarra	years years	St. Andrew's Church, Terrace	85/1252		19 March 1885	Rev. B. L. Gogg
77	20 March 1885	William Lawton Rose Exton	William Lawton Rose Exton 💍 1885/673	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 17	Lower Hutt Lower Hutt	9 months years	St. James Church	85/635	Frank Exton, Father	20 March 1885	Rev. E. S. Gross, C. of E. P.
78	23 March 1885	George Harris Sarah Thorogood	George Harris Sarah Thompson 💍 1885/1390	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 29	Pahautanui Wellington	years years	Home of Rev. James Paterson, Terrace	85/1245		23 March 1885	Rev. James Paterson, Pres.
79	24 March 1885	John Donovan Rozena Sutherland	John Donovan Rosina Margaret Sutherland 💍 1885/374 John Sutherland Ellen Sutherland 💍 1886/782	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 21	Wellington Wellington	years years	Registrar's office, Wellington	85/348		24 March 1885	W. I. Wyatt
80	26 March 1885	Edward Duncan Montgomery Mary Eliza Kitching	Edward Duncan Montgomerie MacKellar Mary Eliza Kissling 💍 1885/356	Bachelor Widow	M. D.	37 37	Wellington Wellington	1 year years	St. Mark's Church	85/354		26 March 1885	Rev. R. Coffey, C. of E. P.
81	26 March 1885	Robert Gordon Sarah Mocham	Robert Gordon Sarah Moxham 💍 1885/597	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 33	Wellington Taranaki Street	3 days years	Wesleyan Church	85/312		26 March 1885	Rev. W. B. Oliver, Wes.
82	26 March 1885	James Best Jane Taylor	James Best Jane Taylor 💍 1885/1317	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 24	Ohariu Tawa Flat	years years	Primitive Methodist Church	85/1263		26 March 1885	Rev. A. J. Smith, Prim.
83	27 March 1885	Rudolf Cleary Katie Bracohan	Rudolf Manzey Katie Bradshaw 💍 1885/366	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 22	Wellington Wellington	years years	Registrar's office, Wellington	85/346		27 March 1885	W. I. Wyatt
84	28 March 1885	Henry Samuel Burton Sarah Ann Harris	Henry Samuel Benton Sarah Ann Harris 💍 1885/373	Bachelor Spinster	Plasterer	23 21	Wellington Wellington	years years	Registrar's office, Wellington	85/347		28 March 1885	W. I. Wyatt

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).