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 779

District of WELLINGTON Quarter ending 31 December 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
514	8 December 1899	Charles Tendore Woolf Alice Cordelia Woolf	Charles Vendore Alice Cordelia Woolf 💍 1899/4799	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	27 years 26	Wellington Wellington	12 months 12 months	Residence of Rev. J. K. Elliott, Pine Street	99/4538	18 December 1899	Rev. J. K. Elliott
515	18 December 1899	Henry Edwards Smith Winnifred Susan Smith	Henry Edwards Winnifred Susan Smith 💍 1899/4877	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	22 22	Wellington Wellington	14 years 14 years	St. James Church, Adelaide Road	99/4616	18 December 1899	Rev. W. Shirer
516	18 December 1899	Albert Fortunato Amadio Louise Marie Jarr	Albert Fortunato Amadio Marie Louise Tarr 💍 1899/4830	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	23 years 25	Wellington Karori	10 weeks 25 years	Residence of Mr. J. B. Jarr, Karori	99/4568	18 December 1899	Rev. Chas. Dallaston
517	18 December 1899	Matthew William Thew Margaret Anne Freeman	Matthew William Thew Margarete Annie Freeman 💍 1899/4871	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	36 22	Wellington Wellington	21 years 6 years	Residence of Mr. Geo. Gyton, 61 Tinakori Road	99/4610	18 December 1899	Mr. Frank Hales
518	18 December 1899	George Cox Fache Grace Alice Clark	George Cox Fache Grace Alice Clark 💍 1899/4032	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	29 22	Wellington Christchurch	10 years 12 years	St. Michael's Church, St. Alban's Parish, Christchurch	99/4793	18 December 1899	Rev. C. A. Fraser
519	19 December 1899	Walter George Tiller Millie Birch	Walter George Tiller Millie Birch 💍 1899/4863	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker	25 26	Wellington Wellington	3 days 26 years	Wesleyan Church, Taranaki Street	99/4578	19 December 1899	Rev. W. C. Oliver
520	19 December 1899	George Thomas Hanlon Gray Eliza Jane Lenton Gray	George Thomas Hanlon Eliza Jane Lenton Gray 💍 1899/4856	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 26	Wellington Wellington	3 days 4 months	St. Mark's Church, Wellington	99/4594	19 December 1899	Rev. R. Coffey

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).