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 716

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
486	21 December 1898	Albert Poole Lily May Macintosh	Albert Poole Lily May MacKintosh 💍 1898/4797	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	27 22	Dunedin Wellington	30 yrs 30 yrs	St. John's Church, Wellington	98/4294		21 December 1898	Revd Jas. Paterson
487	22 December 1898	William Bernard Mary Angela Vincent	William Bernard Scanlon Mary Angela Vincent 💍 1899/460	Bachelor Spinster	Salesman	29 24	Wellington Wellington	20 yrs 18 yrs	Chapel, Hill St., Wellington	99/569		22 December 1898	Revd W. J. Lewis
488	22 December 1898	Walter Leslie Mair Maud Matilda Smith	Walter Esdale Mair Maud Matilda Smith 💍 1898/4786	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber	27 26	Wellington Wellington	10 mos 10 yrs	Residence of Mr. Tulloch, 49 Sydney St., Wellington	98/4283		22 December 1898	Revd J. R. Elliott
489	22 December 1898	William Henry Yeates Matilda Round	William Henry Yeatts Matilda Round 💍 1898/4567	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	23 22	Woolston, Canterbury Kaiapoi	11 mos 13 yrs	Wesleyan Church, Wellington	98/4337		23 December 1898	Revd Thos. E. Jones
490	23 December 1898	Henry Taylor Hume Elizabeth Ch. Rutherford	Henry Taylor Hume Elizabeth Rutherford 💍 1898/4574	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer School Teacher	38 26	Mahakipawa Poutahi, Karori	3 yrs 2 yrs	Residence of Henry Brown, Small St., Wellington	98/4343		23 December 1898	Revd H. B. Burnet
491	23 December 1898	Henry Alexander Miller Elizabeth Louisa Green	Henry Alexander Miller Elizabeth Young Niven 💍 1899/692	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 19	Wellington Wellington	23 yrs 10 yrs	St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Wellington	99/587	James Green, father	23 December 1898	Revd Chas. Dallaston
492	23 December 1898	Josiah Borey Annie Smith	Josiah Bovey Annie Smith 💍 1898/4577	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 28	Wellington Wellington	10 mos 10 years	Residence of Mr. H. Patching, 9 Hopper St., Wellington	98/4346		23 December 1898	Revd Jno. Dawson
493	28 December 1898	Humphrey Arthur Jones May Elsie Grace	Humphrey Arthur Innes Jones May Elsie Moss 💍 1898/5075	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer	30 28	Mainate, Canterbury Wellington	3 yrs 3 mos	St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Wellington	98/4990		28 December 1898	Revd Jones-Hanly
494	28 December 1898	Alexander Russell Annie Bull	Alexander Russell Annie Bull 💍 1898/4545	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	27 24	Wellington Wellington	8 yrs 24 yrs	Private House of Mr. R. Lewis, 74 Daniel St., Wellington	98/4314		28 December 1898	Revd W. J. Lewis
495	28 December 1898	Robert Fordyce Beatrice Mary Ready	Robert Fordyce Beatrice Ready 💍 1898/4554	Bachelor Spinster	Artilleryman Milliner	25 23	Dunedin Wellington	18 mos 23 yrs	Wesleyan Chapel, Hill St., Wellington	98/4322		28 December 1898	Revd W. 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).