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 186

District of Feilding 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
539	1 July 1898	Charles Staffan Mary Jane Henry McKeague	Charles Staffan Mary Jane Henry McKeague 💍 1898/3708	Bachelor Spinster	Music Teacher Tailoress	25 27	Feilding Feilding	4 years 10 years	at the residence of the Bride's father, King Street, Feilding	98/2917	1 July 1898	James Cocker
540	8 July 1898	Edmond Blare Annie Conrad	Edmond Blake Annie Conrad 💍 1898/2485	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Servant	27 25	Feilding Feilding	5 days 2 years	at the residence of the Bride's mother, Kimbolton Road, Feilding	98/3004	8 July 1898	James Cocker
541	14 July 1898	Joseph William Burne Sarah Nace	Joseph William Burne Sarah Hall 💍 1898/3709	Divorced Spinster	Farmer Domestic	33 26	Kiwitea Feilding	9 years 5 years	at the residence of Mr. Sophia Ross, Gladstone Street, Feilding	98/2918	14 July 1898	James Cocker
542	27 July 1898	Alfred Hugh Maguire Edith Mary Clapham	Alfred Hugh Maguire Edith Mary Clapham 💍 1898/3710	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	25 25	Feilding Feilding	8 months 5 years	Church of England, Feilding	98/2919	27 July 1898	A. S. Lucas Jones
543	8 August 1898	James Joseph Kennedy Anastasia Woulfe	James Joseph Kennedy Anatasia Woulfe 💍 1898/2506	Bachelor Spinster	Seller Dressmaker	26 22	Masterton Feilding	6 years 4 days	Roman Catholic Chapel, Feilding	98/3721	8 August 1898	J. F. Patterson
544	11 August 1898	Hight Armstrong Jabez Charles Armstrong	Henry Armstrong Juliet Alice Armstrong 💍 1898/4291	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Domestic Duties	31 30	Woodville Feilding	3 months 1 year	Church of England, Woodville	98/3644	11 August 1898	J. C. Eccles
545	16 August 1898	Henry Salmon Alice Smith	Henry Salmon Alice Smith 💍 1898/3711	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic	40 28	Feilding Feilding	4 years 1 year	Church of England, Feilding	98/2920	16 August 1898	A. S. Lucas Jones
546	13 September 1898	Arthur Charles Foster Margaret Ada Gordon	Arthur Charles Foster Margaret Ada Gordon 💍 1898/3713	Bachelor Widow	Storeman	22 24	Feilding Feilding	2 years 3 months	Primitive Methodist Church, Feilding	98/2921	13 September 1898	J. W. Hayward
547	20 September 1898	Arthur Ernest Sutton Elizabeth Annie Mayhew	Arthur Ernest Sutton Elizabeth Annie Mayhew 💍 1898/3714	Widower Spinster	Farmer	34 26	Feilding Waituna West	3 days 1 month	at the residence of the Bride's father, Robert Mayhew, Waituna West	98/2922	20 September 1898	J. W. J. Spence

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).