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 849

District of Lyttelton 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
8	19 April 1898	James Ramage Hoad Taylor Mary Priscilla Sweeney	James Ramage Hood Taylor Mary Priscilla Sweeney 💍 1898/1846	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Clerk	34 years 25 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 years 12 months	Home of James Ramage Hoad Taylor, Heathcote Road, Lyttelton	98/2091		19 April 1898	Rev. K. M. Salvasen, Roman Catholic Minister
9	20 April 1898	Oscar Nystram Jane Kay	Oscar Neptram Jane Kay 💍 1898/1857	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	39 years 29 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	9 years 2 years	Home of Mary Ann Kay, Norwich Quay, Lyttelton	98/2092		20 April 1898	Rev. A. H. Headwell, Presbyterian Minister
10	17 May 1898	Richard Harris Mary Murphy	Richard Harris Mary Ann Murphy 💍 1898/1864 William Sansom Mary Murphy 💍 1898/1858	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 years 23 years	Okains Bay, Lyttelton Okains Bay, Lyttelton	4 days 7 days	Home of Albert Short, Lyttelton	98/2093		17 May 1898	Rev. B. J. Murray, Wesleyan Minister
11	28 May 1898	George Oakley Mary Jean Hunter	George Oakley Mary Jean Hunter 💍 1898/1866 George Peters Mary Hunter 💍 1898/2299	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 years 29 years	Heathcote, Lyttelton Charteris Bay, Lyttelton	4 days 27 years	Public School Room, Charteris Bay	98/2095		28 May 1898	Rev. Neil McCutcheon, Presbyterian Minister
12	31 May 1898	John Charles Farrant Ethel May Bradley	John Charles Tarrant Ethel May Bradley 💍 1898/1865	Bachelor Spinster	Ships Steward	31 years 21 years	S.S. Jeanan, Lyttelton Lyttelton	4 days 4 years	Wesleyan Church, Lyttelton	98/2094		31 May 1898	Rev. B. J. Murray, Wesleyan Minister
13	2 June 1898	George Thomas Fisher Isabella Helen Williams	George Thomas Fisher Isabella Ellen Williams 💍 1898/2263	Bachelor Spinster	Steward	24 years 19 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	12 months 19 years	St. Saviours, Anglican Church, Lyttelton West	98/2547	Ann Williams, Mother	2 June 1898	Rev. E. E. Chambers, Anglican Minister
14	23 June 1898	John William Peasgood Edith Kate Shepherd	John William Peascod Edith Kate Shepherd 💍 1898/1867	Bachelor Spinster	Marine Engineer Nurse	42 years 27 years	S.S. Delphic, Lyttelton Lyttelton	5 days 7 days	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Lyttelton	98/2096		23 June 1898	William Shanaphan, Registrar of Marriages

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).