Intentions to Marry, 1864

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840376, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 478

District of Invercargill Quarter ending 30 September 1864

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
212	22 August 1864	Hector McIvor Charlotte Elizabeth Moore	Hector McIvor Charlotte Elizabeth Moore 💍 1864/3844	Bachelor Spinster	Store Keeper Schoolmistress	31 26	Invercargill Invercargill	4 years 1 year	In the house of Kenneth McLeod Esqr Tay St Invercargill	1878	22 August 1864	A.H. Stobo
213	23 August 1864	James Lyons Hanna Beaumont	Jabez Lyons Hannah Beaumont 💍 1864/5081	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	21 21	Myross Bush Makivi Plains	2 years 4 months	In the English Church at Invercargill	1835	23 August 1864	W.P. Tanner
214	31 August 1864	Richard Onyon Eliza Cassels	Richard Onyon Eliza Cassels 💍 1864/5084	Bachelor Spinster	Shipping Agent	28 22	Invercargill Invercargill	13 months 2 years	In the English Church at Invercargill	1836	31 August 1864	W.P. Tanner
215	1 September 1864	William David Brown Murray Elizabeth Harvey	William David Brown Murray Elizabeth Harvey 💍 1864/5149	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	21 19	Invercargill Invercargill	6 months 18 months	In the Wesleyan Church Invercargill	1810	1 September 1864	J.J. Shaw
216	2 September 1864	Charles Gardiner Margaret McArthur	Charles Gardiner Margaret McArthur 💍 1864/4960	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	30 22	Waihopai Waihopai	5 years 10 months	In the house of the said Charles Gardiner at Waikupai Mills	1879	2 September 1864	A.H. Stobo
217	9 September 1864	Charles Henry Reynolds Theresa Hibson	Charles Henry Reynolds Theresa Hibson 💍 1864/5087	Bachelor Spinster	Tinker	27 23	Invercargill Invercargill	2 years 1 week	In the English Church at Invercargill	1837	9 September 1864	W.P. Tanner
218	14 September 1864	Richard Powell Elizabeth Robertson	Richard Powell Elizabeth Robertson 💍 1864/4963	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Guard Servant	26 22	Invercargill Invercargill	12 months 9 months	At the Union Hotel in Tay Street Invercargill	1880	14 September 1864	A.H. Stobo
219	16 September 1864	John Turner Janet Helm	John Turner Janet Helm 💍 1864/5217	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	38 27	Mabel District Mabel District	4 years 6 months	In the house of the said John Turner	1784	16 September 1864	A.H. Stobo
220	20 September 1864	Samuel Farrar Catherine Leahy	Samuel Farrar Catherine Leahy 💍 1864/5152	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	39 34	Invercargill Invercargill	15 months 6 years	In the Wesleyan Church Invercargill	1811	20 September 1864	J.J. Shaw

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).