Intentions to Marry, 1866

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840378, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 203

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
151	5 April 1866	Edward Bezar Mary Ann Kearney	Edward Bezard Mary Ann Kearns 💍 1866/6733 Edward Lewis Mary Ann Micklewaine 💍 1866/8374	Bachelor Spinster	Col. Sergt. Servt.	28 19	Wanganui Do	16 mo 8 mo	At the Roman Catholic Chapel Wanganui	802	Geo Willis Guardian	5 June 1866	Revd. S. Pesant
152	5 April 1866	James Ballantine Mary Jane Neill	James Ballantyne Mary Jane Neill 💍 1866/6706	Bachelor Spinster	Servt.	27 16	Wanganui Do	2 yrs 12 yrs	at Christ Church Wanganui	793	James Neill father	5 June 1866	Revd. Charles Nicholes
153	10 April 1866	John Hair Mary Ann Higgins	John Hair Mary Ann Higgie 💍 1866/6832	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 18	Wanganui Do	22 yrs 15 yrs	At the Residence of Mr. Higgins Near Wanganui	836	Thomas Higgins father	10 April 1866	Revd. M. Cummins
154	15 April 1866	John Keene Eliza Smith Murray	Job Keen Elizabeth Murray 💍 1866/6769	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	over 21 over 21	Wanganui Do	10 yrs 10 yrs	St. Pauls Church Wanganui	814		15 April 1866	Revd. R. Taylor
155	17 April 1866	James William Baldy Emily Harrison	James William Baker Emily Harrison 💍 1866/6775	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 23	Wanganui Do	1 yr 23 yrs	at St. Johns Church Mataraua	816		17 April 1866	Revd. R. Taylor
156	25 April 1866	John Wynston Nicholson Isabella Eliza Campbell	John Tylston Miksteed Isabella Eliza Campbell 💍 1866/6709	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 20	Wanganui Do	15 yrs 16 yrs	At Christ Church Wanganui	794	Jessie Campbell Mother	24 April 1866	Rev. Charles Nicholes
157	3 May 1866	Hugh McKinnon Harriett Wood		Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	31 25	Wanganui Do	2 yrs 5 yrs	Presbyterian Church Wanganui	791		3 May 1866	Revd. D. Hogg
158	12 May 1866	Patrick Therriden Catherine Meredith	Patrick Sheridan Catherine Atkinson 💍 1866/6736	Bachelor Widow	Hotel Keeper	25 22	Wanganui Do	14 yrs 15 yrs	at the Roman Catholic Chapel Wanganui	803		12 May 1866	Revd. S. Pesant
159	23 May 1866	Charles William Clark Christina Henrietta Henske		Bachelor Widow	Farmer	53 41	Rangitikei Do	6 yrs 4 yrs	at the Residence of Mrs. Henske Rangitikei	774		29 June 1866	Rev. R. S. Wentworth

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).