Intentions to Marry, 1867

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840379, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 207

District of Wanganui Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
13	April 3	William Burn Jane McWilliam	William Burr Jane McWilliam 💍 1867/6307	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	26 18	Wanganui do	2 yrs 15 do	All Saints Church	667		April 3	Rev. C. [UNCLEAR]
14	April 3	William McKinney Ann Robertson	William McWilliam Ann Robertson 💍 1867/6310 William Elder Marion Robertson 💍 1867/9706	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 28	Wanganui do	14 months 13 mo	St John's Church	669		April 3	Rev. C. [UNCLEAR]
15	April 13	Philip Connolly Mary Coldall		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	30 30	Wanganui do	3 yrs 2 yrs	Catholic Chapel	654		April 13	Rev. J. Pezant
16	April 15	Alexander Burnnett Ann Milroy	Alexander Bennet Mary Milroy 💍 1867/6184	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 29	Wanganui do	1 month 2 months	Manse	671		April 15	Rev. J. Treadwell
17	April 20	Alfred P. Palmer Grace W. Cobham	Alfred Pickering Palmer Grace Martha Cobham 💍 1867/6211	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	29 21	Patea Wellington	10 months 14 yrs	Church Wanganui	633		April 20	Rev. A. Harding
18	April 24	John Ott Beatrice Robertson	John Old Beatrice Robertson 💍 1867/6235	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 21	Wanganui do	11	At the Residence	621	JW Newnes Mother	April 24	Rev. D. Hogg
19	April 29	George Sam Dought Elizabeth Jane Mason	George Samuel Wright Elizabeth Paterson 💍 1867/6232	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 23	Wanganui do	16 yrs 7	At Wanganui	640		April 29	Rev. D. Hogg
20	April 30	Alfred James Alice Robinson	Alfred Caines Alice Atkinson 💍 1867/6313	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 18	Wanganui do	20 yrs 18	St Paul's Church	630	James Robinson, Father	April 30	Rev. B. Taylor
21	May 7	Wm T. Watts Caroline Lindner	William Thomas Watts Caroline Lindner 💍 1867/6214	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet maker	26 18	Wanganui do	12 mo 11	All the London	634	Ernest Lindner, Father	May 7	Rev. J. Harding
22	May 28	Daniel Smith Rebecca Barber	Daniel Smith Rebecca Agnes Barton 💍 1867/6217	Widower Widow	Carpenter	38 35	Wanganui do	12 yrs 12 mo	All the London	635		May 28	Rev. J. Harding
23	June 25	Henry Moore Mary Wisinder	Henry Mason Mary McAlinden 💍 1867/6277	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 18	Wanganui do	2 yrs 11	All Saints	655	James Thurston, Step Father	June 25	Rev. J. 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).