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 707

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
416	10 November 1898	George Latham Mary Connery	George Nathan Mary Connery 💍 1898/3303	Bachelor Spinster	Commission Agent Tailoress	46 32	Manganni Manganni	46 years 20 years	Registrar's Office, Wellington	98/4258	10 November 1898	F. M. Mansfield, Registrar
417	10 November 1898	John Thomas Kent Ada Florence Gawne	John Thomas Kent Ida Florence Gawne 💍 1898/4582	Bachelor Spinster	Coach Proprietor	24 21	Sea Town Sea Town	5 months 2 years	Revd. C. T. Lawry's Parsonage, Kent Terrace, Wellington	See No 421	10 November 1898	Revd. C. T. Lawry
418	11 November 1898	Robert Hayward Fisher May Corson		Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	33 24	Wellington Dunedin	12 years 20 months	Registrar's Office, Wellington	Not issued	11 November 1898	F. M. Mansfield, Registrar
419	11 November 1898	George Milton Hammon Edith Gurney	George Milton Hammon Edith Gurney 💍 1898/5071	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	40 28	On Board R.M.S. "Waimoa", Sydney Christchurch	18 months 12 years	St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Wellington		12 November 1898	Revd. W. C. Waters
420	12 November 1898	Robert Hayward Fisher May Corson		Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	33 24	Wellington Dunedin	12 years 20 months	St. Peter's Church, Willis Street, Wellington		12 November 1898	Revd. W. C. Waters
421	13 November 1898	John Thomas Kent Ada Florence Gawne	John Thomas Kent Ida Florence Gawne 💍 1898/4582	Bachelor Spinster	Coach Proprietor	24 21	Sea Town Sea Town	5 months 2 years	St. Mary of the Angels Church, Boulcott St, Wellington	98/4328	13 November 1898	Revd. J. C. Ainsworth
422	10 November 1898	Lewis Morgan Ellen Sarah McDowell	Lewis Morgan Ellen Sarah McDonald 💍 1898/4799	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	26 26	Kopua, Hawkes Bay Stafford, Hokitika	8 months 20 years	St. Peter's Church, Wellington	98/4296	14 November 1898	Revd. W. C. Waters
423	14 November 1898	James James Brewer Margaret Greg	Vincent James Prosser Margaret Greig 💍 1898/5087	Bachelor Spinster	Ironmonger	30 24	Pahiatua Wellington	15 months 20 years	Residence of J. Brewer, Wellington	98/4979	14 November 1898	Revd. C. S. Ogg
424	14 November 1898	George Milton Hammon Edith Gurney	George Milton Hammon Edith Gurney 💍 1898/5071	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	40 28	On Board R.M.S. "Waimoa", Sydney Christchurch	18 months 10 years	St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Wellington	98/4986	14 November 1898	Revd. F. G. Masters
425	14 November 1898	Charles Anderson Henrietta Heron	Charles Anderson Maria Ada Bevan 💍 1898/4791 Charles Anderson Hannah Jones 💍 1898/2791	Bachelor Spinster	Tanner	23 25	Johnsonville Johnsonville	12 months 8 months	St. Peter's Church, Noohe, Wellington	98/4289	14 November 1898	Revd. Jas. Paterson

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).