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 735

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 June 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
131	1 April 1898	Timothy Moynihan Fanny Thorpe	Timothy Moynihan Fanny Thorpe 💍 1898/1557	Widower Spinster	Labourer	35 29	Wellington Wellington	8 years 1 year	St. Mary's of the Angels Church, Boulcott St., Wellington	98/1773	1 April 1898	Revd. Thos. D. Boy
132	1 April 1898	Robert Alexander Wright Elizabeth Coulter	Robert Alexander Wright Elizabeth Coulter 💍 1898/1441	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	34 27	Wellington Opaki	17 years 2 years	House of Mr. Coulter, Opaki	98/1653	1 April 1898	Mr. Albert Francis Turner
133	2 April 1898	Henry Mudgway Letitia Jane Jacobs	Henry Mudgway Letitia Jane Jacobs 💍 1898/1481	Bachelor Spinster	Dairyman	33 23	Petone Petone	33 years 18 months	Registrar's Office	98/1719	2 April 1898	F.W. Mansfield, Registrar
134	2 April 1898	George Beverley Plante Mary Luinn	George Beverley Plante Mary Quinn 💍 1898/1513	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 25	Greytown Greytown	5 years 20 years	St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Wellington	98/1750	2 April 1898	Revd. T.H. Sprott
135	2 April 1898	Thomas McWhirter Mary Eliza Green	Thomas McWhirter Mary Eliza Green 💍 1898/1504	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	22 27	Petone Nelson	13 years 27 years	Revd. J.R. Elliott's Manse, Pirie St., Wellington	98/1742	2 April 1898	Revd. J.R. Elliott
136	4 April 1898	Thomas Herron Amy Hamilton	Thomas Patterson Heron Amy Hamilton 💍 1898/1545	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	28 25	Karangahake Wellington	6 months 8 years	Private residence of J.B. Hamilton, South Avenue, Wellington	98/1985	4 April 1898	Revd. Wm. Bamber
137	4 April 1898	Marmaduke Sidgwick Eva Blanche Donnelly	Marmaduke Sedgwick Eva Blanche Donnelly 💍 1898/1503	Bachelor Spinster	Currier	30 27	Wellington Wellington	8 years 10 years	House of H.R. Donnelly, Marton Street, Wellington	98/1741	4 April 1898	Revd. J.R. Elliott
138	5 April 1898	George Edward Draper Ellen Lay	George Edward Draper Ellen Pay 💍 1898/1505	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	29 30	Wellington Wellington	7 years 20 years	Revd. J.R. Elliott's Manse, Pirie Street, Wellington	98/1743	5 April 1898	Revd. J.R. Elliott
139	5 April 1898	Ernest Fraser Jones Ellen Emily Whelan	Ernest Fraser Jones Ellen Emily Whellan 💍 1898/1544	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	31 22	Wellington Wellington	20 years 10 years	House of Mr. Whelan, Hafee Street, Wellington	98/1784	5 April 1898	Revd. Wm. S. Fernie
140	5 April 1898	Alfred Randall Marshall Martha Bolton	Alfred Randall Marshall Martha Bolton 💍 1898/2222	Widower Spinster	Collector	30 19	Wellington Wellington	6 months 19 years	House of Mr. Bolton, 22, Medway Crescent, Wellington	98/2485	5 April 1898	Revd. James Paterson

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).