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 228

District of Wellington Quarter ending 30 September 1895

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
337	8 September 1895	Thomas Gibbon Rosetta May Cox	Thomas Gibbons Rosetta May Cox 💍 1898/2480	Widower Spinster	Buggy maker	40 23	Wellington Thames Auckland	10 years 10 years	Registrar's Office, Wellington	98/2999		8 September 1895	Registrar
338	9 September 1895	Charles Pealton de Vis Katherine Elizabeth Leeke	Charles Walter de Vis Katherine Elizabeth Luckie 💍 1898/3993	Widower Widow	Branch of Museum	69 50	Brisbane Queensland Brisbane Queensland	16 years 5 years	St Marks Church, Wellington	98/3535		9 September 1895	Rev. Jas. Paterson
339	10 September 1895	James Judd Julia Ann Avis	James Judd Julia Davis 💍 1898/4115	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 21	Western Hutt Upper Hutt	28 years 21 years	St Marks Church, Wellington	98/3561		10 September 1895	Rev. R. Coffey
340	10 September 1895	Harry Arthur McCombe Martha Jane Christian	Harry Arthur McCormick Martha Jane Christian 💍 1898/3814	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler	29 21	Wellington Wellington	2 years 6 months 11 months	House of The Morley, Caroline Street, Wellington	98/3038		10 September 1895	Rev. J. K. Colliott
341	10 September 1895	Edwin Brown Annie Elizabeth Sutton	Edwin Brown Annie Elizabeth Hutton 💍 1898/2495	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	25 19	Wellington Wellington	20 years 12 years	House of W. Hutton, Tory Street, Wellington	98/3013	W. Hutton, father	10 September 1895	Rev. Wm. Bannister
342	12 September 1895	Robert James Deare Grace Bertha Martin	Robert James Deare Grace Bertha Martin 💍 1898/4284	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	24 21	Wellington Wellington	7 years 21 years	Trinity Wesleyan Church, Wellington	98/3660		12 September 1895	Rev. A. Lawry
343	12 September 1895	William Edward Smith Annie Emily Borrows	William Edward Smith Annie Emily Burns 💍 1898/3816	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	24 20	Wellington Wellington	10 years 6 years	House of David Lloyd, 29 Frederick Street, Wellington	98/3018	Sarah Jane Lloyd, mother	12 September 1895	Rev. Chas. Dallaston
344	12 September 1895	John Augustine Fyfe Elizabeth Neill	John Augustine Pyle Elizabeth Neill 💍 1898/2481	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	38 33	Horokino Templeton Canterbury	20 years 20 years	Registrar's Office, Wellington	98/3000		12 September 1895	Registrar
345	13 September 1895	John Muirhead Minnie Pratt	John Muirhead Minnie Pratt 💍 1898/2763	Bachelor Spinster	Baptist Minister	30 23	Caversham Otago Worthing Sussex England	9 years Several years	House of Arthur Hoby, Woollcombe Street, Wellington	98/3019		13 September 1895	Rev. Chas. Dallaston
346	13 September 1895	William Hamafin Ellen Barry	William Hannafin Ellen Barry 💍 1898/2980	Bachelor Spinster	Driver	30 28	Wellington Wellington	4 years 2 years	St Mary's Cathedral, Wellington	98/3040		13 September 1895	Rev. Wm. J. Lewis

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).