Intentions to Marry, 1907 Wellington, Marlborough, Nelson, Westland

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840434, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

1907 is bound in three volumes - Auckland, Taranaki, Hawke's Bay (1907a), Wellington, Marlborough, Nelson, Westland (1907b), and Canterbury, Otago, Chatham Islands (1907c).

Page 559

District of Picton Quarter ending 31 December 1907 Registrar Thomas William Libocq

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

130

21 October 1907

Walter Charters
Jessie Violet May Godfrey

Walter Charters
Jessie Violet May Godfrey
💍 1907/7440

Bachelor
Spinster

Butcher

30
22

Picton
Picton

5 years
22 years

Residence of Alfred Godfrey, Picton

07/7145

21 October 1907

Benjamin Horace Ward, Church of England

No	130
Date of Notice	21 October 1907
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Walter Charters	Jessie Violet May Godfrey
	💍 1907/7440
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Butcher
Age	30	22
Dwelling Place	Picton	Picton
Length of Residence	5 years	22 years
Marriage Place	Residence of Alfred Godfrey, Picton
Folio	07/7145
Consent
Date of Certificate	21 October 1907
Officiating Minister	Benjamin Horace Ward, Church of England

131

5 November 1907

John Mitchell Carnahan
May Bragg

John Mitchell Carnahan
May Bragg
💍 1907/7439

Bachelor
Spinster

Engineman

35
23

Picton
Picton

4 years
23 years

Church of St Johns in the Wilderness, Koromiko

07/7144

5 November 1907

William Wollstein, Church of England

No	131
Date of Notice	5 November 1907
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	John Mitchell Carnahan	May Bragg
	💍 1907/7439
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Engineman
Age	35	23
Dwelling Place	Picton	Picton
Length of Residence	4 years	23 years
Marriage Place	Church of St Johns in the Wilderness, Koromiko
Folio	07/7144
Consent
Date of Certificate	5 November 1907
Officiating Minister	William Wollstein, Church of England

132

8 November 1907

Frederick Henry Selwyn Ibbetson
Violet Marjory Smith

Frederick Henry Selwyn Ibbetson
Violet Margery Smith
💍 1907/7442

Bachelor
Spinster

Clerk
Dressmaker

29
27

Picton
Picton

6 years
27 years

Residence of F. U. Smith, Picton

07/7147

8 November 1907

John Dickson, Presbyterian

No	132
Date of Notice	8 November 1907
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Frederick Henry Selwyn Ibbetson	Violet Marjory Smith
BDM Match (95%)	Frederick Henry Selwyn Ibbetson	Violet Margery Smith
	💍 1907/7442
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Clerk	Dressmaker
Age	29	27
Dwelling Place	Picton	Picton
Length of Residence	6 years	27 years
Marriage Place	Residence of F. U. Smith, Picton
Folio	07/7147
Consent
Date of Certificate	8 November 1907
Officiating Minister	John Dickson, Presbyterian

133

27 December 1907

Albert Henry Levien
Lucy Bragg

Albert Henry Levien
Lucy Bragg
💍 1907/7441

Bachelor
Spinster

Labourer

21
32

Picton
Picton

4 days
2 months

Residence of William Bragg, Mount Pleasant

07/7146

27 December 1907

Benjamin Horace Ward, Church of England

No	133
Date of Notice	27 December 1907
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Albert Henry Levien	Lucy Bragg
	💍 1907/7441
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Labourer
Age	21	32
Dwelling Place	Picton	Picton
Length of Residence	4 days	2 months
Marriage Place	Residence of William Bragg, Mount Pleasant
Folio	07/7146
Consent
Date of Certificate	27 December 1907
Officiating Minister	Benjamin Horace Ward, Church of England

134

30 December 1907

George Augustus Avery
Britannia Ann May Blake

George Augustus Avery
Britannia Ada May Blake
💍 1907/7443

Bachelor
Spinster

Miner
Laundress

30
23

Picton
Picton

4 days
23 years

Residence of Charles Blake, Picton

07/7148

30 December 1907

John Dickson, Presbyterian

No	134
Date of Notice	30 December 1907
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	George Augustus Avery	Britannia Ann May Blake
BDM Match (96%)	George Augustus Avery	Britannia Ada May Blake
	💍 1907/7443
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Miner	Laundress
Age	30	23
Dwelling Place	Picton	Picton
Length of Residence	4 days	23 years
Marriage Place	Residence of Charles Blake, Picton
Folio	07/7148
Consent
Date of Certificate	30 December 1907
Officiating Minister	John Dickson, Presbyterian

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 1908. 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).