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 205

District of Wanganui Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
27	10 July 1866	Andrew Green Martha Meads	Andrew Green Martha Meads 💍 1866/6652	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	20 24	Rangitike Rangitike	10 yrs	at the Residence of his parents	775	Ann Green, mother	10 July 1866	Rev. J. Elliott
28	18 July 1866	William Coles Ellen Grant	William Craig Ellen Tracy 💍 1866/6739 William McLean Ellen Griffin 💍 1866/9709	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	43 33	Wanganui Wanganui	1 yr 10 yrs	at the Wesleyan Chapel	804		18 July 1866	Rev. J. Edwards
29	18 July 1866	Geo. R. Milner Jane B. Mackie		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 27	Wanganui Wanganui	2 yrs	at the Residence	780		20 July 1866	Rev. S. Pezant
30	19 July 1866	Joseph Duff Margaret Evans	Joseph Luff Margaret Kearns 💍 1866/6742	Bachelor Spinster	Capt. H.M. 18th Regt.	22 18	Wanganui Wanganui	4 days	at the Roman Catholic Chapel	805	J. Peppard, Guardian	19 July 1866	Rev. S. Pezant
31	8 August 1866	James Wynman Mary Ann Piegan	James Tynan Mary Ann Ryan 💍 1866/6745	Bachelor Spinster	Sergt. in the Military Train	26 21	Wanganui Wanganui	5 ms	at the Roman Catholic Chapel	806		8 August 1866	Rev. S. Pezant
32	15 August 1866	Henry Archer Eliza McKenzie	Herman Rochel Eliza McKenzie 💍 1866/6838	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 23	Rangitike Rangitike	8 yrs	at his Residence	838		17 August 1866	Rev. J. Duncan
33	11 August 1866	John Ed. Murray Alice Mary Ann Phelps	John Edward Murray Alice Mynoss Thorpe 💍 1866/6712	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	24 22	Wanganui Wanganui	15 ms 2 yrs	at Trinity Church	795		13 August 1866	Rev. Chas. Nicholson
34	14 August 1866	Frederick Brown Agnes McAlpine	Frederick Simeon Agnes McAlpine 💍 1866/6670	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	24 22	Wanganui Wanganui	18 ms	at the Wesleyan Chapel	781		14 August 1866	Rev. J. Buttle
35	15 August 1866	David Conchie Martha Goff	David Conchie Martha Grey 💍 1866/6694	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	26 24	Wanganui Wanganui	6 ms	New Hall	789		15 August 1866	Rev. J. Hale
36	17 September 1866	James Cais Clara Agnes	James Davis Clara Agnes Elizabeth Nixon 💍 1866/6715	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	31 21	Wanganui Wanganui	10 days 3 yrs	at the Presbyterian Church	796		17 September 1866	Rev. Mr. Collie
37	17 September 1866	William McKee Ellen Sullivan	William Johnson Ellen Sullivan 💍 1866/6748	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	27 22	Wanganui Wanganui	5 ms 4	at the Catholic Church	807		17 September 1866	Rev. S. Pezant

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).