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 853

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 December 1898 Registrar J W Maddern

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
514	4 December 1898	John Lowe Matilda Cunningham	John Lowe Matilda Cunningham 💍 1899/5351	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic	32 33	Christchurch Christchurch	32 Years 8 Years	St Pauls Manse Lichfield St ChCh	99/5329		4 December 1899	Rev Dr Elmslie Presbyterian
515	4 December 1898	William Heywood Alice Maud Fenner Hawley	William Heyward Alice Maud Fenner Hawley 💍 1899/4028	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	22 21	Christchurch St Martins	22 Years 7 Years	St Marks Church Opawa	99/4781		4 December 1898	Rev Arch Cholmondely Anglican
516	4 December 1898	Leonard Arnold Ellen Brisley	Leonard Arnold Ellen Brinley 💍 1899/5223	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Domestic	28 26	Christchurch Christchurch	28 years 26 years	Pro Cathedral Barbadoes St ChCh	99/5340		4 December 1898	V Rev F L M des Chesnais Roman Catholic
517	4 December 1898	William Thomas Foreman Jessie Price	William Thomas Foreman Jessie Price 💍 1899/5361	Bachelor Spinster	Traveller	22 18	Christchurch Christchurch	5 weeks 18 years	House of Mrs Price Barbadoes St ChCh	99/5319	Jane E Price Mother	4 December 1898	Rev C E Ward Methodist
518	5 December 1898	Albert Partridge Cooper Minnie Louisa Cooper	Albert Partridge Minnie Louise Cooper 💍 1899/4074	Widower Spinster	Accountant Domestic	31 22	Christchurch Christchurch	23 years 22 years	House of Mr R Cooper Matheson's Rd Papanui	99/4806		5 December 1898	Rev J J Doke Baptist
519	5 December 1898	James Blythe Lillian Harriot Williams	James Blyth Lillian Harriot Williams 💍 1900/852	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Servant	65 31	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	St Matthews Church St Albans	1900/836		5 December 1898	Rev H. Williams Anglican
520	6 December 1898	William George McConnell Bessie Hay	William George McConell Bessie Hay 💍 1899/5303	Widower Spinster	Farmer Domestic	36 34	Christchurch Christchurch	8 years 8 years	House of Mr W G McConnell Prebbleton	99/5747		6 December 1898	Rev Wm. L. Wright Presbyterian
521	7 December 1898	Charles Cockroft Agnes Nance Goodrick	Charles Cockroft Agnes Harriett Goodale 💍 1899/4024	Bachelor Spinster	Baker Domestic	23 27	Christchurch Christchurch	4 months 14 years	Registrar's Office ChCh	99/4748		7 December 1898	Registrar Marriages J W Maddern

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).