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 691

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
460	13 December 1897	Robert Walker Isabella Yeates	Robert Walker Isabella Yeatts 💍 1897/3298	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	23 21	Petone Kaiwarra	8 years 21 years	St Andrews Church, Wellington	97/4853	15 December 1897	Rev Charles Simmers Ogg
461	13 December 1897	Charles Pettey Annie Potter	Charles Petley Annie Potter 💍 1897/2617	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	27 24	Wellington Wellington	3 years 18 months	House of Mrs Evelyn Place, 47 Abel Smith Street, Wellington	97/3952	13 December 1897	Rev William Baumber
462	14 December 1897	William Anderson Jessie Lindsay Frampton	William Anderson Jessie Lindsay Cramond 💍 1897/2598	Bachelor Spinster	Medical Practitioner	26 29	Dunedin Napier	9 months 3 months	St Peters Church, Wellington	97/3933	14 December 1897	Rev William Campbell Waters
463	14 December 1897	John Daniel Robertson Constance Maud Telford	John Daniel Robertson Gibbons Maud Constance Pulsford 💍 1897/2599	Bachelor Spinster	Journalist	37 23	Wellington Wellington	15 years 18 months	St Peters Church, Wellington	97/3934	14 December 1897	Rev William Campbell Waters
464	15 December 1897	Robert Huston Campbell Ellen Saul	Robert Huston Campbell Ellen Saul 💍 1897/190	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 21	Taita Taita	20 years 8 years	Registrar's Office, Wellington	97/3912	15 December 1897	F. W. Mansfield, Registrar
465	15 December 1897	William Farquhar Smith Margaret Frances James	William Farquahar Smith Margaret Frances Jamison 💍 1897/3321 William Featherstone Smith Margaret Brodesser 💍 1897/1650	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 20	Pahiatua Palmerston North	3 years 6 months	Anglican Church, Palmerston North			Rev Herbert Faulkner Hunt
466	15 December 1897	Thomas Douglass Elizabeth Helen Reardon	Thomas Douglass Elizabeth Annie Roberts 💍 1897/192	Bachelor Spinster	Sugar Mill Hand	34 32	Bundaberg Queensland Wellington	4 years 20 years	Registrar's Office, Wellington	97/3913	15 December 1897	F. W. Mansfield, Registrar
467	15 December 1897	Charles Edward Martin Harriet Eleanor Wiggins	Charles Edward Matthews Harriet Eleanor Wiggins 💍 1897/2618	Bachelor Spinster	Private Secretary	25 24	Wellington Wellington	9 years 14 years	House of Mr H. Wiggins, 100 Terrace, Wellington	97/3953	15 December 1897	Rev William Baumber
468	15 December 1897	Carl Olson Caroline Persson	Carl Olson Caroline Persson 💍 1897/2653	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	37 29	Wellington Wellington	12 years 4 years	St James Church, Wellington	97/3969	15 December 1897	Rev William Shiner
469	15 December 1897	William James Turner Eliza Jane Uren	William James Turner Wiggs Eliza Jane Uren 💍 1897/2619	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	24 22	Wellington Wellington	35 years 2 years	Wesleyan Church, Taranaki Place, Wellington	97/3954	15 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).