Intentions to Marry, 1898 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840413, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 27 2025

1898 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 238

District of WELLINGTON Quarter ending 31 March 1898

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
80	21 February 1898	George John White Mary Emily Sissott Spurr	George John White Mary Emily Sisson 💍 1898/498	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	42 26	Poverty Bay Wellington	20 years 26 years	Private house of H. Muir Esq., Woolcombe St., Poverty Bay	98/521		21 February 1898	Rev C. S. Ogg
81	22 February 1898	John Ernest Smith Mary Ann Geddis	John Ernest Smith Mary Ann Geddis 💍 1898/461	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 22	Wellington Wellington	7 months 15 months	Rev J. K. Elliott's Manse, Pirie Street, Wellington	98/506		22 February 1898	Rev J. K. Elliott
82	22 February 1898	James Wall Gertrude Maria Grimmer	James Wall Gertrude Maria Grimmer 💍 1898/499	Bachelor Divorced	Farmer	27 24	Martinborough, Wairarapa Martinborough, Wairarapa	5 years 2 years	St. John's Manse, Wellington	98/522	Decree absolute produced 22/1/98	22 February 1898	Rev James Paterson
83	23 February 1898	Robert McCallum Hannah Williamson Gummion	Robert McCallum Hannah Williamson Gunnion 💍 1898/2666 Robert McCallum Caroline Glen Reid 💍 1898/1952	Bachelor Spinster	Salvation Army Officer Salvation Army Officer	39 29	Norwood Naseby	5 months 4 months	Salvation Army Citadel, Vivian St., Wellington	98/575		23 February 1898	Major Joseph Birkenshaw
84	23 February 1898	Frederick Henry Davis Mary Borland	Frederick Henry Davis Mary Borland 💍 1898/561	Widower Widow	Wharf employee	45 46	Wellington Wellington	20 years 1 year	Registrar's Office, Wellington	98/598		23 February 1898	F. W. Mansfield, Registrar
85	24 February 1898	George Scott Reid Hannah Jane Brightmore	George Scott Reid Hannah Jane Brightmore 💍 1898/462	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	27 25	Wellington Wellington	16 years 3 years	Private house of Mr. Jas. Reid, Roseburgh St., Wellington	98/507		24 February 1898	Rev J. K. Elliott

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).