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 427

District of Timaru 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
128	2 October 1866	John Manchester Ophelia Mary Pain	John Manchester Ophelia Mary Pain 💍 1866/8062	Bachelor Spinster	Stonemason	30 17	Waimate Waimate	3 years 9 months	St. Pain's Residence Waimate	1269		8 November 1866	Rev George Barclay
129	17 November 1866	Isaac Beer Sarah Ann Rowe	Isaac Bee Sarah Ann Rowe 💍 1866/8083	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	20 23	Timaru Timaru	1 year 1 1/2 years	Timaru Church			21 November 1866	Rev George Foster
130	23 November 1866	James Dixon Catherine McKay	James Dixon Catherine McKay 💍 1866/8068 James Bruce Catherine Gordon McKay 💍 1866/9223	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 23	Waimate Waimate	3 years 1 year	St. Andrews Church Waimate	1271		23 November 1866	Rev George Barclay
131	23 November 1866	Thomas Newton Mary Ann Smith	Thomas Newton Mary Ann Smith 💍 1866/8065 Thomas Englert Mary Ann Smith 💍 1866/8263 James Holmes Mary Ann Smith 💍 1866/9517	Bachelor Spinster	Lawyer	23 21	Waimate Waimate	3 years 2 years	St. Andrews Residence Waimate	1270		23 November 1866	Rev George Foster
132	24 November 1866	William Harrison Mary Williams	William Harrison Mary Williams 💍 1866/8086 William Norcome Alice Williams 💍 1866/8272	Widower Widow	Brewer Dressmaker	64 48	Timaru Timaru	6 1/2 years 1 1/2 years	St. Mary's Church Timaru	1277		7 December 1866	[UNCLEAR]
133	21 December 1866	George Manchester Matilda Frances	George Manchester Matilda Frances Chapple 💍 1866/8092	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	28 22	Waimate Waimate	4 years 10 months	St. Andrews Residence Waimate	1279		27 December 1866	Rev Wm B. Richardson
134	24 December 1866	Benjamin Clarkson Mary Helen Cotter	Benjamin Clarkson Mary Helen Coker 💍 1866/8098	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	22 18	Timaru Timaru	3 years 2 years	Office of Registrar of marriages Timaru	1282	George Cotter, Father	26 December 1866	Registrar of marriages
135	31 December 1866	Thomas Seddon Emma Hill	Thomas Jackson Emma Hill 💍 1867/8026	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	33 27	Waimate Timaru	2 years 4 months	Residence of J.W. Barclay Timaru	1282		31 December 1866	Rev George Barclay

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).