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 211

District of Wanganui Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
40	17 July 1866	George McVeir Margaret Findlay	George Moir Margaret Findlay 💍 1866/6682	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	26 23	Turakina Wanganui	18 mos 2 dys	At the residence	783		18th Jul 1866	Revd. Mr. Elmslie
41	18th Oct 1866	William Barker Jane Moore	William Barker Janet Moore 💍 1866/6679 William Moore Mary Moore 💍 1866/8977 William Harrison Sarah Moore 💍 1866/9157	Bachelor Widow	Draper	30 22	Wanganui do	15 mos 7	At the residence of Mr. Fitchett	784		19th Oct 1866	Revd. Mr. Fitchett
42	26 Oct 1866	Thomas Bourne Cecelia Andrews		Bachelor Spinster	Carter	38 23	Wanganui do	2 2	At the Residence of Mr. Fitchett	786		27 Oct 1866	Revd. Mr. Fitchett
43	23 Nov 1866	Charles Hindley Anne [UNCLEAR]		Bachelor Widow	Mason	28 28	Wanganui do	4 9 yrs	Church of England	808		23 Nov 1866	Revd. Mr. Fitchett
44	29 Nov 1866	John Acott Mary Harris	John Lett Mary Harris 💍 1866/6688	Bachelor Spinster	Wheelwright	24 20	Wanganui do	17 yrs 8	At the Wesleyan Chapel	787	Samuel Harris, father	29 Nov 1866	Revd. Mr. Fitchett
45	30 Nov 1866	Henry James Rice Hannah Harrison	Henry James Reid Hannah Harkin 💍 1866/6754	Bachelor Spinster	Engraver	29 18	Wanganui do	12 mos 9	At the Residence	809	Ephraim Brent, Guardian	1st Dec 1866	Revd. S. Piggott
46	23 Nov 1866	John E. Parthood Minnie Ann Ogden	John F Eastwood Martha A Ogden 💍 1866/6691	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	27 17	Wanganui do	2 yrs 15	At the Wesleyan Chapel	788	John Ogden, Father	24 Dec 1866	Revd. G. Elmslie
47	26 Nov 1866	James McLeay Ann Eigo	James McAuley Ann Igoe 💍 1866/6757	Bachelor Spinster	Confectioner	24 20	Wanganui do	2 yrs 6 mos	At the Roman Catholic Chapel	810	Cyrus Eigo, Father	26 Nov 1866	Revd. J. P. Russell
48	12 Dec 1866	Henry [UNCLEAR] Sarah [UNCLEAR]		Bachelor Widow	Farmer	39 33	Wanganui do	2 yrs 8	At St. Pauls Church	813		12 Dec 1866	Revd. R. Taylor

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).