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 229

District of Wellington 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
254	6 August 1866	Henry Short Margaret Mason	Henry Short Margaret Mason 💍 1866/6481	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 years 16 years	Ohino Wellington	about 12 years many years	St Peters Church	718	Jane Elizabeth Houldy, mother	21st August 1866	The Rev. Arthur Stock, B.A., and others
255	9th August 1866	William Leach Maryard Collins	William Leach Margaret Collins 💍 1866/6520	Bachelor Spinster	Grazier	28 years 28 years	Wairarapa, at present of Wellington Mangaroa	5 days many years	Roman Catholic Cathedral, known as "St Mary's", Wellington	732		9th August 1866	The Right Rev. Dr. Viard, Catholic Bishop of Wellington and others
256	9th August 1866	John Parker Macdonald Josephine Venables	John Parker Macdonald Josephine Venables 💍 1866/6475	Bachelor Widow	Commercial Traveller	40 years 33 years	Wellington Wellington	about 8 years upwards of 20 months	St Peters Church, Willis Street, Wellington	716		9th August 1866	The Rev. Arthur Stock, B.A., and others
257	14th August 1866	Alexander McDonald Charlotte Mararet Terera Bulls	Alexander McDonald Charlotte Margaret Teresa Gibbs 💍 1866/6523	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	31 years 23 years	Wellington Wellington	2 years 2 years	Roman Catholic Cathedral, known as "St Mary's", Thorndon	733		14th August 1866	The Right Rev. Dr. Viard, and others
258	15th August 1866	Robert Goodisson Emma Ann Mitchell	Robert Goodison Emma Ann Mitchell 💍 1866/6409	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	20 years 20 years	Otaki Wellington	2 years 1 year	St Paul's Church	661	Thomas Goodisson, father & John Mitchell, father	15th August 1866	The Rev. C.P.H. Maxwell, M.A., and others
259	18th August 1866	Thomas King Mary McGowan	Thomas King Mary McGowan 💍 1866/6427	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	32 years 24 years		6 months 8 months	House of the Green Island, Rev. Wm McGowan	700		18th August 1866	The Rev. William McGowan, and others
260	20th August 1866	Nathaniel Williams Sarah Fletcher	Nathaniel Williams Sarah Fletcher 💍 1866/6334	Widower Spinster	Painter	29 years 19 years	Napier, at present of Wellington Napier, at present of Wellington	6 days 4 days	Residence of the Rev. John Grover, Wellington	668	William Fletcher, father	20th August 1866	The Rev. John Grover, and others

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).