Intentions to Marry, 1897 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840411, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 25 2025

1897 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 325

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 31 March 1897

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
1	4 January 1897	John Henry Nichols Mary Bunny	John Henry Nichols Mary Bunny 💍 1897/4397	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	27 years 19 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	21 years 14 years	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Lyttelton	97/822	Sarah Maria Schuhere, mother	4 January 1897	William Shaughnessy, Registrar
2	14 January 1897	Frederick Herbert Greenwood [Greenwood has been corrected to Grimwood via a note attached to the page] Agnes Ethel Stace	Frederick Herbert Grimwood Agnes Ethel Stace 💍 1897/4398	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman	24 years 17 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	7 days 7 days	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Lyttelton	97/823	Hugh Stace, father	14 January 1897	William Shaughnessy, Registrar
3	18 January 1897	William Canning Florence Kirk	William Canning Florence Kirk 💍 1897/1166	Bachelor Spinster	Telegraphist	29 years 21 years	Lyttelton Heathcote Valley	6 years 12 years	St. John's Church, Latimer Square, Christchurch	97/824		18 January 1897	Rev. H. C. M. Watson, Anglican Minister
4	1 February 1897	John Henry Raven Julia Sloka Knowles	John Henry Raven Julia Flora Knowles 💍 1897/4399	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	28 years 18 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 months 10 years	Holy Trinity Church	97/824	Elizabeth Knowles, mother	1 February 1897	Rev. C. Coater, Anglican Minister
5	2 February 1897	Charles Edward Hollis Jeaniechell Wilson	Charles Edward Holliss Jeanie Chell Wilson 💍 1897/4400	Bachelor Spinster	Builder Tailoress	23 years 24 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	23 years 15 years	Wesleyan Church, Winchester Street, Lyttelton	97/825		2 February 1897	Rev. D. J. Murray, Wesleyan Minister
6	15 February 1897	Robert Young Clow Catherine Rivers Nilsom	Robert Young Clow Catherine Rivers Milsom 💍 1897/4401	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer Milliner	29 years 28 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	3 years 7 years	Home of Mrs. Nilsom Soames, Estate, Lyttelton	97/826		15 February 1897	Rev. A. H. Hendwell, Presbyterian Minister
7	15 February 1897	James Whyte Elizabeth Simson Nilsom	James Whyte Elizabeth Simson Wilson 💍 1897/4402	Bachelor Spinster	Wharfinger Teacher	34 years 31 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	6 years 7 years	Home of Mrs. Nilsom Soames, Estate, Lyttelton	97/827		15 February 1897	Rev. A. H. Hendwell, Presbyterian Minister
8	25 February 1897	Peter Fox Alfreda Eliza Augusta Carter formerly Browning M.N. widow	Peter Fox Alfreda Eliza Augusta Carter 💍 1897/4404	Widower Widow	Drover	59 years 49 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	35 years 8 months	Home of Mr. P. A. Fletcher, Old Governors Bay Road, Lyttelton	97/828		25 February 1897	Rev. A. H. Hendwell, Presbyterian Minister

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).