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 167

District of Wanganui 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
17	17 July 1864	Henry Williamson Mary Ann Patterson	Henry Williamson Margery Paterson 💍 1864/8712	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 29	Wanganui do	12 years 4	at the Residence	505		28 July 1864	Rev. T. H. Fitchett
18	1 August 1864	James Combs Anne McLachlan	James Coombe Anne McLachlin 💍 1864/8706	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 19	Tutaenui Tutaenui	6 years 8 yrs	Church Tutaenui	503		7 Augt 1864	R. Laishley
19	8 Augt 1864	James Mount Sarah Ann Burnes	James Monul Sarah Ann Burrows 💍 1864/8709	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	29 25	Wanganui do	2 yrs 3 days	at the Parsonage	504		18 Augt.	Geo. T. H. Fitchett
20	Augt 26 1864	William Service Matilda James	William Service Matilda Jenniss 💍 1864/8715	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer	26 21		2 mo 6 mo	at the Residence	506		26 Augt	D. Hays
21	Augt 26	Glanville Warren Holland Mary Ann Alexander	Glanville Warren Holland Mary Ann Alexander 💍 1864/4113	Widower Widow	Miller	over over	Wanganui do	9 yrs 3 yrs	at Christ Church	510		31 Augt	Thos C. Nicholson
22	Sept 8	William Sandall Esther Holley	William Sandall Elizabeth Holley 💍 1864/8718	Bachelor Spinster	Private	25 19	Wanganui do	3 yrs 16 yrs	at the Residence	507	John Holley Father	14 Sept.	Fred D. Payne
23	Sep 13	Percival Pinyon Emma Raven	Percival Pinyon Emma Raven 💍 1864/8721	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	30 29	Victoria Avenue do	8 yrs 1 yr	at the Residence	508		13 Sept	Fred. H. Fitchett

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).