Intentions to Marry, 1863

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840375, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 4 2024

Page 388

District of Tokomairiro Quarter ending 30 September 1863

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
53	27 July 1863	William Thomson Small Isabella Jones	William Thomson Small Isabella Jones 💍 1863/4309	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	27 24	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	20 months 8 months	The House of John Treweek, Meadowbank Tokomairiro	1389		27 July 1863	Rev. Alex. B. Tod
54	5 August 1863	Alexander Ross Isabella Watson	Alexander Ross Isabella Warson 💍 1863/4251	Bachelor Spinster	Overseer of Public Works	27 26	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	6 months 8 months	In the House of William Milton, Milton Tokomairiro	1411		5 August 1863	Rev. Alex. B. Tod
55	24 August 1863	Timothy O'Leary Mary O'Connor	Timothy O'Leary Mary C'Connor 💍 1863/4218	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	28 24	Wetherston Tokomairiro Wetherston Tokomairiro	20 months 4 months	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Tokomairiro	1420		25 August 1863	Alexander Ayson, Registrar
56	24 August 1863	Stephen Caudle Catherine Jessie Caldbeck	Stephen Candle Catherine Theresa Caldbeck 💍 1863/5748	Widower Spinster	Brickmaker	38 27	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	23 months 10 months	In The House of Stephen Caudle, Tokomairiro	268		24 August 1863	Rev. Alex. B. Tod
57	29 August 1863	Anthony Douglas Helen Paterson	Anthony Douglas Helen Paterson 💍 1863/5757	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	28 27	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	14 Days 14 Days	The Manse, Tokomairiro	871		29 August 1863	Rev. Alex. B. Tod
58	29 August 1863	William Martin Jessie Kelly	William Martin Jessie Kelly 💍 1863/4422	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	27 18	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	8 years 3 Months	In the House of M. Lewis Dawson, Tokomairiro	1366	William Martin made a Declaration that this Minor has no Guardian in the Colony	29 August 1863	Rev. Alex. B. Tod
59	30 September 1863	Charles Taylor Helen Thomson	Charles Taylor Ellen Thompson 💍 1863/5121	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	24 19	Kaitangata Tokomairiro North Molyneux Tokomairiro	11 years 11 Months	In the House of Joseph Mulholland, Crescent North Molyneux Tokomairiro	1204	Mr Taylor made a Solemn Declaration that this Minor has no Guardian in the Colony	30 September 1863	Rev. William Bann... [?]

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 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).