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 326

District of River Grey 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
31	27 January 1866	Martin Ryan Catherine Ryan	Martin Ryan Catherine Ryan 💍 1866/8527	Bachelor Widow	Miner Housekeeper	28 23	Greenstone Creek Revell Street Hokitika	11 months	Ryans Royal Hotel	1434	27 January 1866	Rev John McGinn
32	30 January 1866	James Bowden Augusta Lees	James Bowden Augusta Tees 💍 1866/8344	Bachelor Spinster	Packer	28 22	Tan and Sheet Creek Revell Street	11 months	Registrar Office	1368	30 January 1866	Edmund Carter
33	5 February 1866	William Spencers Charlotte Roberts	William Spencer Charlotte Roberts 💍 1866/8329	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	40 39	Ross Town	5 months	Camp Hokitika	1363	5 February 1866	Rev Lorenzo Moore
35	5 February 1866	John Barrett Norah Toohay	John Barrett Honora Touhy 💍 1866/8530	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	27 24	Spread Eagle Hotel Hokitika Kanieri Township	18 months 9 months	Catholic Church	1435	5 February 1866	Rev John McGinn
36	6 February 1866	Gerard Bueddinghaus Johanna Suranne Gertine Shepherd		Bachelor Spinster	Publican	39 23	Ross Town Revell Street Hokitika	5 months 5 days	Camp Hokitika	1364	6 February 1866	Rev Lorenzo Moore
37	9 February 1866	Rodolph Hirtes Bertha Gettiel	Rodolph Hirter Bertha Gutheil 💍 1866/8338	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	39 24	Ross Town Gibsons Hotel Hokitika	3 months 2 days	Camp Hokitika	1366	9 February 1866	Rev Lorenzo Moore
38	10 February 1866	Edmund Wickes Eliza Hinchy	Edmund Wickes Eliza Hinchy 💍 1866/8335	Bachelor Spinster	Timber Merchant	29 22	Greymouth	8 months 3 weeks	Own Residence Greymouth	1365	10 February 1866	Rev Lorenzo Moore
39	12 February 1866	Michael Henry Wilson Mary Lee	Michael Henry Kitson Mary Lee 💍 1866/8533	Bachelor Spinster	Publican	28 22	Revell Street Hokitika	12 months 12 months	Catholic Church	1436	12 February 1866	Rev John McGinn

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).