1865 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840377, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 205

District of Wanganui Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
10	1 April 1865	William Whale Mary Ann Attwood	William Whale Mary Ann Atkinson 💍 1865/5996	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	21 18	Wanganui	4 yrs 8 yrs	at St Paul's Church Wanganui	637	Philip Davy, Step Father	4 April 1865	Revd. R. Taylor
11	20 April 1865	George Goodman Mary Adamson	George Goodman Mary Adamson 💍 1865/6023	Widower Widow	farmer	44 42	Wanganui do	20 yrs 20 yrs	at the Residence of the Adamson	646		20 April 1865	Revd. A. Gilfillan
12	25 April 1865	Frederick Hanneke Rosena Goebel	Frderick Hanneke Rosine Goebel 💍 1865/5933	Bachelor Widow	farmer	29 [UNCLEAR]	Rangitiki	4 yrs [UNCLEAR]	at the Residence of F. Hanneke	616		25 April 1865	Revd. R. Attsworth
13	26 April 1865	James John Elyzahth Marsh	James Tosh Elizabeth Marsh 💍 1865/5918	Bachelor Spinster	[UNCLEAR]	[UNCLEAR] [UNCLEAR]	Newcastle N.S.W. Newcastle N.S.W.	over 10 yrs over 10 yrs	St Andrews Church Wellington	609		28 April 1865	Chas. D. Nicholls
14	28 April 1865	Gottlieb Goebel Elizabeth Danke	Gottlieb Goebel Elizabeth Lancho 💍 1865/5936	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	[UNCLEAR] [UNCLEAR]	Rangitiki Rangitiki	5 yrs 5 yrs	at the Residence of G. Goebel	617		28 April 1865	Revd. R. Attsworth
15	29 April 1865	Gignette Augustus Roche Ellen Davidson		Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	28 yrs 28	Wanganui do	7 yrs 6 yrs	at Christ Church Wanganui	610		29 April 1865	Chas. D. Nicholls
16	23 May 1865	Robert Johnston Jemima Henning	Robert Johnston Jemima Haining 💍 1865/5975	Bachelor Widow	Farm Servant	38 39	Wanganui do	3 yrs 3 yrs	at the Residence of David Hogg	630		23 May 1865	David Hogg
17	29 May 1865	Wm. Hollingsworth Mary and Long	William Hollingsworth Margaret Long 💍 1865/5999	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	38 40	Rangitiki Rangitiki	12 yrs 3 yrs	at St. Paul's Church Rangitiki	638		29 May 1865	Revd. R. Taylor
18	5 June 1865	John Cameron Ann Gilmour	John Paisley Jane Gilmour 💍 1865/7340	Bachelor Spinster	Esquire	[UNCLEAR] [UNCLEAR]	Wanganui Wanganui	24 yrs 12 yrs	at the Residence of J. Cameron	631		5 June 1865	Revd. D. Hogg
19	9 June 1865	Zakeniah Meads Mary J. Gray	Zechariah Meads Mary Irma Gray 💍 1865/5939	Bachelor Widow	farmer	22 32	Rangitiki do	8 yrs 12 yrs	at the Residence of Wm. Greys	618		9 June 1865	Revd. J. Attsworth
20	20 June 1865	Daniel Hurley Sophia Winslade	Daniel Hurley Sophia Winslade 💍 1865/6026	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	25 22	Wanganui do	18 yrs 8 yrs	at the Residence of Mr. Hurley	647		20 June 1865	Revd. R. Filebitt
21	22 June 1865	Jacob Kummery Price Julia Gledon	Jacob Kennedy Price Julia Gleeson 💍 1865/5954	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	41 21	Taurchina Taurchina	9 mos 3 mos	at the Roman Catholic Chapel	623		22 June 1865	Revd. S. Regard

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

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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).