Intentions to Marry, 1860

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840372, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 12 2024

Page 170

District of Taieri Quarter ending 30th of September 1860

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
8	11th July	Thomas Hunter Margaret W Master	Thomas Hunter Margaret McMaster 💍 1860/3051	Widower Spinster	Farm Servant Domestic Servant	36 30	East Taieri East Taieri	4 years 3 years	In the dwelling house of W. John W Master, Saddlehill		26th July	Rev William Will East Taieri
9	6th August	Walter Sinclair Julia Yorkston	Walter Sinclair Julia Yorston 💍 1860/1812	Bachelor Spinster	Lawyer	27 17	Waihola Waihola	2 years 1 year	In the house of W Hugh Yorkston Waihola	Hugh Yorkston Father of Julia Yorkston		Rev. John M Nicol Waihola
10	6th August	Robert Carrick Catherine Hutton	Robert Carrick Catherine Hutton 💍 1860/3042	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 20	South Clutha South Clutha	1 year 2 years	In the dwelling house of Mr Robt Christie Labourer South Clutha	No person resident in the Colony of New Zealand whose consent to this Marriage is required by law.		Rev. William Bannerman Clutha
11	8th August	Patrick Peter Whalan Mary Helen McDonald	Patrick Peter Whalan Mary Ellen McDonald 💍 1860/2640	Bachelor Spinster	Agriculturist	30 25	Taieri Beach Waihola Taieri Beach Waihola	2 years 7 years	In the dwelling house of Mr Margt McDonald Taieri Beach Waihola		8th August	Rev. John M Nicol Waihola
12	8th September	Robert Chalmers Janet Fife	Robert Chalmers Janet Fyfe 💍 1860/3060	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Servant	24 23	Rosebank Tokomairiro Rosebank Tokomairiro	2 years 2 weeks	In the dwelling house of Mr Robert Chalmers Rosebank Tokomairiro			Rev. A. B. Todd Tokomairiro
13	21st September	James Christie Jane Speid	James Christie Jane Speed 💍 1860/3177	Bachelor Spinster	Agriculturist	22 22	Saddlehill Dunedin	6 years 6 weeks	In the dwelling house of Mr William Barr Butcher, Princes Street Dunedin		21st Sept	Rev. Thomas Burns Dunedin

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).