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 706

District of Wellington Quarter ending 31 December 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
406	4 October 1898	Charles Thomas Fraser Ada White Rev	Charles Thomas Fraser Ada Whitaker 💍 1898/5086	Bachelor Spinster	Clark	25 18	Wellington Wellington	4 years 18 years	Residence of Revd. C.S. Ogg, Wellington	98/4978	William Whitaker, Father	4 October 1898	Revd. C.S. Ogg
407	5 October 1898	Bartholomew McGrath Lizzie Sophia Hennella Tenman	Bartholomew McGrath Lizzie Sophie Henrietta Penman 💍 1898/4550	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Insurance Agent	30 30	Oxford, Canterbury Wellington	30 years 1 year	St. Mary's Church, Wellington	98/4318		5 October 1898	Revd. H. Joseph Lewis
408	5 October 1898	Matthew Adams Mary Alice Bowen	Matthew Adams Mary Alice Bowen 💍 1898/5145	Bachelor Spinster	Harper	23 24	Petone Petone	12 years 2 years	St. Augustine's Church, Petone	98/4905		5 October 1898	Revd. A. H. Thomson
409	7 October 1898	Charles Joseph Henry Gertrude Annie Feltham	Charles Joseph Henry Trim Gertrude Annie Feltham 💍 1898/4546	Bachelor Spinster	Telephone Clerk	26 25	Wellington Wellington	26 years 16 years	Primitive Methodist Church, McLean Street, Wellington	98/4315		7 October 1898	Revd. Richard Hall
410	7 October 1898	Herbert George Feltham Rosetta Alexander	Herbert George Feltham Rosetta Alexander 💍 1898/4547	Bachelor Spinster	Pharmaceutical Chemist	24 19	Wellington Wellington	16 years 6 years	Primitive Methodist Church, Wellington	98/4316	Mary Alexander, Mother	7 October 1898	Revd. Richard Hall
411	7 October 1898	Charles Anderson Hannah Jones	Charles Anderson Hannah Jones 💍 1898/2791	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 23	Tahunanui Wellington	4 years 23 years	St. John's Church, Wellington	98/4288		7 October 1898	Revd. James Paterson
412	7 October 1898	Thomas Miller Grace Milne Speedy	Thomas McIvor Grace Milne Speedy 💍 1898/4579	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 29	Palmerston North Belmont, Lower Hutt	3 years 29 years	St. Peter's Church, Belmont, Lower Hutt	98/4348		8 October 1898	Revd. Andrew Gray
413	8 October 1898	Thomas Harold Taylor Catherine Hutchinson	Thomas Charles Bilby Catherine Johanson 💍 1898/4428	Widower Widow	Farmer	47 47	Tonga Porutu, Taranaki Wellington	3 years 2 years		not solemnized. See Reg. 98/623		8 October 1898	Revd. J. R. Glascow
414	8 October 1898	John Fefts Clarissa Smith	John Tofts Clarissa Smith 💍 1898/3302 John Ness Margaret Smith 💍 1898/4181	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	19 22	Wellington Wellington	19 years 18 years	Registrar's Office, Wellington	98/4257	J. Jefferson, Father, to give consent	22 October 1898	J. F. Mangfield, Registrar
415	8 October 1898	Oswald Caldwell Alice Miller	Oswald Caldwell Alice Millea 💍 1898/4551	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Dressmaker	30 29	Waverley Wellington	20 years 9 months	St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Wellington	98/4319		8 October 1898	Revd. M. 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).