Intentions to Marry, 1899 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840416, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole 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 245

District of WELLINGTON Quarter ending 30 September 1899 Registrar FREDERICK WILLIAM 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
297	24 July 1899	Robert Charles Gardiner Elizabeth Ann Mann	Robert Charles Gardiner Elizabeth Ann Mann 💍 1899/3523	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber	21 20	Wellington Wellington	4 years 20 years	Salvation Army Citadel, Wellington	99/3356	Jas Mann, Father	24 July 1899	Major Jno. Cain
298	24 July 1899	George James Pardner Caroline Harris	George James Gardner Caroline Harris 💍 1899/3266 Daniel James Gardiner Maria Harris 💍 1899/1227	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	22 22	Wellington Wellington	22 years 22 years	Residence of Mr Geo Harris, Foresters Lane, Wellington	99/3322		24 July 1899	Rev. J. Kennedy Elliott
299	24 July 1899	Richard James Hogan Emma Wilkes	Richard James Hogan Emma Wilkes 💍 1899/3353	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker Tailoress	23 19	Wellington Wellington	18 months 19 years	Baptist Church, Vivian Street, Wellington	99/3385	Emma Wilkes, Mother	24 July 1899	Rev. Charles Dallaston
300	25 July 1899	Thomas William Stringer Edith Sarah Arnold	Thomas William Arthur Stringer Edith Sarah Arnold 💍 1899/3275	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	20 21	Wellington Wellington	3 years 21 years	Wesley Church, Taranaki Street, Wellington	99/3330	William Joseph Stringer, father of groom; J. Arnold, father of bride	25 July 1899	Rev. H. C. Oliver
301	25 July 1899	George Walter France Julia Frances Stubbs	George Walter France Julia Frances Stubbs 💍 1899/4376	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer	31 23	Matamau, Waipawa Co. Wellington	10 years 12 months	St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Wellington	99/3923		25 July 1899	Rev. J. H. Sprott
302	25 July 1899	Peter Hutchison Grace Pengelly	Peter Hutchison Grace Pengelly 💍 1899/3267	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith Dressmaker	31 32	Patea Wellington	6 months 3 years	Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church, Wellington	99/3323		25 July 1899	Rev. J. H. Elliott

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).