Intentions to Marry, 1899 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840415, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington (now located in the National Library reading room), September 5 2025

1899 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 762

District of WELLINGTON Quarter ending 30 June 1899 Registrar M. Mansfield

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
182	25 April 1899	Herbert George Smith Margaret McKeegan	Herbert George Smith Margaret McKeegan 💍 1899/1960	Bachelor Spinster	Insurance Accountant	32 23	Wellington Wellington	32 years 22 years	St. Mary's of the Angels Church, Doulcott Street, Wellington	99/1915		25 April 1899	Revd Thos de Voy
183	26 April 1899	Edgar Price Alice Davis	Edgar Prier Alice Davis 💍 1899/1980	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 19	Whataharawa Horokiwi, Petone	4 years 9 months	St. Augustine's Church, Petone	99/1959	Henry Lawrence Davis, father	1 May 1899	Revd Delacour Russell
184	26 April 1899	John William Lewis Jessie Annie Johns	John William Lewis Jessie Annie Johns 💍 1899/1990	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 18	Wellington Wellington	23 years 11 years	Residence of Mr. W. H. Johns, Karori	99/1968	William Henry Johns, father	26 April 1899	Revd T. F. Jones
185	27 April 1899	Benjamin Shardlow Ida Andrews	Benjamin Shardlow Ada Andrews 💍 1899/2206	Widower Spinster	Fireman	30 23	Petone Napier	12 months 23 years	Residence of Mr. W. H. Shardlow, Gear Street, Petone	99/2097		28 April 1899	Revd Alexr Thomson
186	27 April 1899	John Meek Anderson Helen Lucy Anderson	John Mexted Helen Lucy Anderson 💍 1899/1926	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 22	Shannon Shannon	4 years 8 months	Registrar's Office, Wellington	99/1870		27 April 1899	R. Talbot, Deputy Registrar
187	28 April 1899	John Stocker Robinson Alice Maud Morgan	John Stocker Robinson Alice Maud Morgan 💍 1899/1987	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	21 21	Johnsonville Johnsonville	8 years 6 years	Residence of Mr. Harry Rod, Johnsonville	99/1948		28 April 1899	Revd W. C. Oliver

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).