Intentions to Marry, 1887

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840399, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, May 14 2025

Page 1247

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 December 1887

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
304	1 November 1887	John Smith Mary Steele	John Smith Mary Steele 💍 1887/1111	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 23	Wellington Wellington	4 days 3 years	Name or [illegible]	87/2782		1 November 1887	Rev. J. K. Elliott
305	1 November 1887	Arthur Copelance Sutherland Therea Betone Gebber		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Civil Servant	21 19	Wellington Wellington	Name or [illegible] 3 years	Registrars office Wellington	87/2805	Eliza Gurney, mother	1 November 1887	W. T. Wyatt
307	4 November 1887	John Alfred Chaney Nicotine Petersen	John Alfred Chaney Nicoline Petersen 💍 1887/1135	Bachelor Spinster	Bride maker	21 21	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	St. Marks Church	87/2785		3 November 1887	Rev. R. Coffey
308	4 November 1887	Cecil Harry Greendy Croll Annie Louisa Chappeto	Cecil Harry Grundy Croll Annie Louise Chappell 💍 1887/1167	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	17 25	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	Registrars office Wellington	87/2806	Hans Peterson, Father	4 November 1887	W. T. Wyatt
309	5 November 1887	Charles Henry Hand Maria Tolley	Charles Harry Harris Maria Tolley 💍 1887/1136	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	26 27	Wellington Wellington	9 months 4 years	House of Mr. Chappeto Botanical Road	87/2837		4 November 1887	Rev. J. Paterson
310	5 November 1887	John Sidney Winstanley Annie Eliza Mundy	John Sidney Winstanley Annie Eliza Muntz 💍 1887/1121	Bachelor Spinster	Telegraphist	23 25	Wellington Wellington	6 months 3 days	St. Peters Church	87/2791		5 November 1887	Rev. N. E. Luckey
311	7 November 1887	John Smith Nellie Theresa Country	John Smith Ellen Theresa Courtney 💍 1887/1129 John Smith Isabella Henrietta Subritzky 💍 1887/856	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	26 23	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	St. Peters Church	87/2792		7 November 1887	Rev. N. E. Luckey
312	8 November 1887	Henry Benjamin Ramos Theresa Maud Lawler	Henry Benjamin Ramos Mosse Theresa Maud Lawlor 💍 1887/1137	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	30 29	Wellington Wellington	3 months 3 months	Registrars office Wellington	87/2808		8 November 1887	W. T. Wyatt
313	9 November 1887	Henry McIntyre Rose Millward	Henry McIntyre Rose Millward 💍 1887/1112	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	21 22	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	House of Mr. Mc Intyre Austin Street	87/2783		8 November 1887	R. W. J. K. Elliott
314	10 November 1887	John Sully Julia O'Reilly	John Tully Julia O'Reilly 💍 1887/1886	Widower Spinster	Labourer	40 35	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	St. Marys Church the Angels	87/3582		10 November 1887	Rev. P. Kerrigan
315	11 November 1887	William Thomas Catherine Curry	William Thomas Catherine Curry 💍 1887/1139	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	25 24	Wellington Wellington	4 years 4 years	Registrars office Wellington	87/2810		11 November 1887	W. T. 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).