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 808

District of Kaiapoi 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
19	3 October 1898	William Townsend Lucy Dillo	William Townsend Lucy Sills 💍 1898/3460	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	33 31	Awatuna Woodend	2 years 26 years	Wesleyan Church, Woodend	98/4593		30 October 1898	Thos. H. Guffere, Wesleyan
20	4 November 1898	James Mc. Death Mary Ann Quinn	James McGrath Mary Ann Quinn 💍 1898/3462	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 22	Ohoka Ohoka	20 years 10 years	Catholic Church, Kaiapoi	98/4594		4 November 1898	Paul Aubrey, Catholic
21	4 November 1898	John Burgoyne Sarah Ann Bost	Fred Burgoyne Sarah Ann Best 💍 1898/3458	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Weaver	28 22	Kaiapoi Kaiapoi	4 years 15 years	Wesleyan Church, Kaiapoi	98/4591		4 November 1898	Paul W. Fairclough, Wesleyan
22	9 November 1898	Frank Frayne Imelda Ann Evans	Frank Frayne Matilda Ann Evans 💍 1898/3457	Bachelor Spinster	Coach Proprietor	33 34	Fairlie Kaiapoi	4 years 1 week	C. M. Evans, Charles Street, Kaiapoi	98/4590		10 November 1898	Paul W. Fairclough, Wesleyan
23	1 December 1898	Stephen Henry Wood Maggie Creamer	Stephen Henry Wood Maggie Creamer 💍 1898/3454	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Domestic Service	25 19	Kaiapoi Eyreton	7 days 9 months	Registrar's Office, Kaiapoi	98/4587	Robert Creamer, father	1 December 1898	L. W. Bourke, Deputy Registrar
24	5 December 1898	James Robert Lucas Thomasine Peggy	James Herbert Lucas Thomasina Begg 💍 1898/3455	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 18	Ohoka Ohoka	2 years 5 years	Registrar's Office, Kaiapoi	98/4588	Jane Peggy, mother	15 December 1898	T. Tester, Registrar
25	9 December 1898	Charles Simpson Emily Edith Brighting	Charles Simpson Emily Edith Brighting 💍 1898/3459	Bachelor Spinster	Millhand Weaver	24 23	Kaiapoi Kaiapoi	17 years 23 years	Wesleyan Church, Kaiapoi	98/4592		19 December 1898	Paul W. Fairclough, Wesleyan
26	20 December 1898	Robert Reedy Hannah Willborne		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Duties	23 25	Kaiapoi Kaiapoi	23 years 5 years	Registrar's Office, Kaiapoi	98/4589		24 December 1898	T. Tester, Registrar
27	28 December 1898	Charles Harman Jessie White	Charles Harman Jessie White 💍 1898/3463	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 23	Rangiora Swannanoa	26 years 23 years	Wesleyan Church, Swannanoa, Kaiapoi	98/4595		28 December 1898	W. G. Wigg, Wesleyan

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).