Intentions to Marry, 1898 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840414, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 27 2025

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

Page 150

District of Napier Quarter ending 30 September 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
84	2 September 1898	Robert Wiffin Florence Hannah Daly	Robert Wiggin Florence Hannah Daly 💍 1898/2911	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 29	Napier Napier	3 days 3 days	Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Napier	98/2887		2 September 1898	S. J. Jay, Registrar
85	6 September 1898	Stanley Bennett Balfour Emily Lyndon Balfour	Stanley Bennett Annie Lyndon Balfour 💍 1898/2913	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	26 20	Puketapu Greenmeadows	15 years 3 years	English Church, Taradale	98/2889	Emily Maria Balfour, mother	6 September 1898	Rev. P. Clarke, Ch. of England
86	10 September 1898	John Thomas Dooney Mary Catherine Dooney	John Thomas Mary Catherine Dooney 💍 1898/2928	Bachelor Spinster	Dairyman Domestic	25 20	Meeanee Meeanee	12 years 11 years	Residence of Bride's Father, Meeanee	98/2883	Patrick Dooney, Father	10 September 1898	Rev. J. R. Binsfield, R.C. Priest
87	10 September 1898	Aquila McPearce Mary Mitchell	Aquila William Pearce Mary Mitchell 💍 1898/3164	Bachelor Widow	Fireman	29 34	Napier Spit	2 years 9 years	English Church, Spit	98/3564		10 September 1898	Rev. O. Dean, Ch. of England
88	12 September 1898	John David O'Connell Mary McCormack	John David O'Connell Mary McCormack 💍 1898/3287	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Domestic	24 23	Clive Clive	2 years 6 months	R.C. Church, Napier	98/4097		12 September 1898	Rev. M. Gragan, R.C. Priest
89	22 September 1898	Frederick Samuel Caldwell Livingston Jessie Mary Hannah	Frederick Samuel Caldwell Livingston Jessie Margaret Hannah 💍 1898/2917	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic	24 33	Hawera Greenmeadows	20 years 9 years	Presbyterian Church, Meeanee	98/2894		22 September 1898	Rev. C. Connor, Presbyterian
90	26 September 1898	William Theobold Dunstan Ada Ruxton	William Theobald Dunkin Ada Ruston 💍 1898/4927	Bachelor Spinster	Valuer	33 19	MangaRuri Napier	10 years 19 years	St. Augustine's Ch., Napier	98/4957	Samuel Joseph Ruxton	26 September 1898	Rev. H. E. Taylor, Ch. of England

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).