Intentions to Marry, 1897 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840412, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 25 2025

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

Page 692

District of WELLINGTON Quarter ending 31 December 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
470	16 December 1897	Frank Callender Cora Emma Green	Frank Callender Cora Emma Green 💍 1897/2600	Bachelor Spinster	Curator, Government Nursery	33 36	Waverley London	2 yrs 36 yrs	St Peters Church, Wellington	97/3935		16 December 1897	Rev William Campbell Waters
471	16 December 1897	Thomas Edmond Trask Catherine Mary Pope	Thomas Edmund Nolan Catherine Mary Pope 💍 1898/490	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 18	Wellington Wellington	2 yrs 1 year	Catholic Church, Boulcott Street, Wellington	98/534		20 December 1897	Rev John Ainsworth
472	17 December 1897	Archibald McLean Elizabeth Lyons	Archibald McLean Elizabeth Lyons 💍 1897/312	Bachelor Widow	Sheepfarmer	53 44	Maraekakaho, Hawkes Bay Greenhill, Hawkes Bay	29 yrs 17 yrs	St Johns Manse, Wellington			Not issued
473	18 December 1897	Arthur Thomas Livermore Elizabeth Lee	Arthur Thomas Livermore Elizabeth Lea 💍 1897/2613	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	28 22	Wellington Wellington	6 yrs 1 year	House of Mrs Livermore, No 1 Woodward Street, Wellington	97/3925		18 December 1897	Rev John Reed Glasson
474	20 December 1897	Bryce Trude Gowan Jane Annie Laura Whiting	Bryce Frude Girvan McWalker Jane Annie Laura Whiting 💍 1897/2624	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	25 24	Wellington Wellington	3 yrs 3 yrs	House of Mrs Whiting, 21 Broughton Street, Wellington	97/3959		20 December 1897	Rev James Kennedy Elliott
475	20 December 1897	Robert George Long Wilhelmina Jackson	Robert George Smith Wilhelmina Jackson 💍 1897/2625	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	21 19	Wellington Wellington	7 yrs 19 yrs	Kent Terrace Church, Wellington	97/3960	John Jackson, father of bride	20 December 1897	Rev James Kennedy Elliott
476	20 December 1897	Ernest Alfred White Julia Lamerton Stent	Ernest Alfred White Julia Lamerton Styles 💍 1897/193	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	24 17	Johnsonville Johnsonville	4 yrs 17 yrs	Registrar's Office, Wellington	97/3914	F. W. Mansfield, Registrar	20 December 1897	F. W. Mansfield, Registrar
477	20 December 1897	George Hume Meronica Rebekah Stent	George Hume Meronea Rebekah Bradshaw 💍 1897/2601	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	28 24	Martinborough Petone	4 yrs 8 months	St Peters Church, Wellington	97/3936		20 December 1897	Rev William Campbell Waters
478	20 December 1897	Hugh Heben Chalmers Margaret Morgan	Hugh Heber Cholmondeley Margaret Morgan 💍 1898/515	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	49 34	Port Levy Blenheim	5 yrs 10 yrs	St Paul's Pro Cathedral, Wellington	98/547		22 December 1897	Rev Thomas Henry Sprott
479	20 December 1897	William Penwell Thorne Emily Hooper	William Percival Wansbrough Emily Hooper 💍 1897/2620	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	28 28	Wellington Wellington	1 year 3 years	Wesleyan Church, Wellington	97/3955		20 December 1897	Rev William Baumber

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).