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 485

District of Tuapeka Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
29	2 January 1865	Benjamin Nelson Melvina Reid	Benjamin Nelson Wilhelmina Reid 💍 1865/9205	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	27 21	Tuapeka Tuapeka	3 years 4 mos	Office of Registrar Tuapeka	1756	8 January 1865	R E Field Registrar Tuapeka
30	20 January 1865	John McLinden Margery Robertson	John McLaren Marjory Robertson 💍 1865/9208	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	24 26	Tuapeka Tuapeka	2 yrs 1 1/2	Office of Registrar Tuapeka	1757	26 January 1865	R E Field Registrar Tuapeka
31	8 February 1865	Antoni Kaiser Mary Ann McKey	Antoni Kaiser Mary McKay 💍 1865/9211	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	31 23	Tuapeka Tuapeka	2 yrs 1 mo	Office of Registrar Tuapeka	1758	12 Feby 1865	R E Field Registrar Tuapeka
32	11 February 1865	Thomas Walsh Alice Keating	Thomas Walsh Alice Keating 💍 1865/9169 Thomas Katy Bridget Keating 💍 1865/5447	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	26 23	Tuapeka Tuapeka	1 yr 2 yrs	Catholic Chapel Lawrence	1744	11 Feby 1865	The Revd. Patrick Duffy
33	18 February 1865	James Hall Elizabeth Lyng	James Kelly Elizabeth Smith 💍 1865/6263 James Tindall Elizabeth Smith 💍 1865/4253 James Charlesworth Elizabeth Rynn 💍 1865/7486 James Hamilton Elizabeth Currie 💍 1865/9538 James Davis Elizabeth Lancaster 💍 1864/4578 James Tosh Elizabeth Marsh 💍 1865/5918 James Cullens Elizabeth Baldock 💍 1865/4244	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	29 27	Tuapeka Tuapeka	2 yrs 12 mos	Office of Registrar Tuapeka	1759	18 Feby 1865	R E Field Registrar Tuapeka
34	24 February 1865	Patrick Lyng Agnes McGuiness	Patrick Lyng Agnes Anne Maguire 💍 1865/9172	Bachelor Spinster	Publican Servant	28 21	Tuapeka Tuapeka	2 1/2 yrs 12 mos	Catholic Chapel Lawrence	1745	25 Feby 1865	The Revd Patrick Duffy
35	27 February 1865	Thomas Mealer Hannah Chalk	Thomas Wheeler Emma Chalk 💍 1865/9175	Bachelor Widow	Miner Servant	25 27	Tuapeka Tuapeka	18 mos 3 mos	St Marys Residence Tuapeka	1746	27 Feby 1865	The Revd Patrick Duffy
36	4 March 1865	Edward Thompson Mary Dunwoody	Edward Thompson Mary Dunwoody 💍 1865/9217	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Servant	27 22	Tuapeka Tuapeka	3 yrs 10 mos	Office of Registrar Tuapeka	1760	4 March 1865	R E Field Registrar Tuapeka

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).