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 252

District of WELLINGTON Quarter ending 30 September 1899 Registrar J. W. 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
342	21 August 1899	Walter Eugene Mannina Emily Elizabeth Coll	Walter Eugene Manning Emily Elizabeth Cole 💍 1899/3354	Bachelor Spinster	Brewer	32 38	Wellington Wellington	3 years 4 years	Residence of Chas. Mannina, 58 Ellice Street, Wellington	99/3386	21 August 1899	Rev. Chas. Dallaston
343	21 August 1899	Samuel Courtney Alice Portland	Samuel Courtney Alice Portland 💍 1899/3258	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Dressmaker	30 23	Wellington Wellington	4 years 3 years	Registrar's Office, Wellington	99/3306	21 August 1899	J. W. Mansfield, Registrar
344	21 August 1899	Henry Isaac Hents Mary Ann Mahoney	Henry Isaac Tonks Mary Anne Mahoney 💍 1899/3508	Bachelor Widow	Baker	33 33	Wellington Wellington	33 years 8 months	St. Mary of the Angels Church, Boulcott Street	99/3341	21 August 1899	Rev. J. W. De Toy
345	21 August 1899	Christian Frederik Gottlieb Hurtzhals Marion Renfield	Christian Frederick Gottlieb Kurtzhals Marion Banfield 💍 1899/3365	Bachelor Spinster	Hosier Artist	32 21	Lower Hutt Riwaka, Nelson	1 1/2 years 21 years	Residence of Mr. G. Hurtzhals, Lower Hutt	99/3374	21 August 1899	Rev. Andrew Gray
346	22 August 1899	William Brown Elizabeth Cunningham	William Brown Elizabeth Cunningham 💍 1899/3760	Bachelor Widow	Storekeeper	41 39	Mangamahu Wanganui	3 1/2 years 15 years	St. John's, Clyde Quay, Wellington	99/3932	22 August 1899	Rev. James Paterson
347	22 August 1899	John Collier Ellen Clarke	John Collier Ellen Clarke 💍 1899/3269	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith Tailoress	24 21	Wellington Wellington	13 years 2 1/2 years	Registrar's Office, Wellington	99/3307	22 August 1899	J. W. Mansfield, Registrar
348	22 August 1899	William Bryden Marion Miller	William Brydon Marion Miller 💍 1899/3276	Bachelor Spinster	Printer Dressmaker	24 22	Wellington Wellington	4 months 4 months	Registrar's Office, Wellington	99/3308	22 August 1899	J. W. Mansfield, Registrar

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).