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 209

District of Wanganui 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
24	July 1, 1867	William A Spurdle Elizabeth P. Gilbert	William Aherman Spurdle Elizabeth P Gilbert 💍 1867/6220	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	28 21	Wanganui do	9 months 2 years	at the Residence Wanganui	636		July 13, 1867	J. Hambling
25	July 13, 1867	Wm McMarriman Margaret McElroy	William McMenimin Margaret McElroy 💍 1867/6280	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 22	Waitotara Wanganui	4 mos 6	at the Roman Catholic Chapel	656		July 13	Read. J. Pezant
26	15 July 1867	George Howe Sarah Beck		Bachelor Spinster	Publican	42 21	Wanganui Wanganui	9 mos 4 mos	at the Residence of Mr. G. Howe			15 July 1867	Revd. J. Elmslie
27	July 16, 1867	Joseph Shore Emma Gudman	Joseph Shore Emma Godman 💍 1867/6223	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 18	Wanganui do	10 mos 8	at the Residence Wanganui	637	Emma Scopins July 15 Mother	July 18	Read. J. Hambling
28	16 July 1867	Henry Gill Mary Ann Still	Gill Henry Mary Still 💍 1867/6283	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 16	Wanganui Wanganui	2 yrs 12 yrs	At the Roman Catholic Chapel Wanganui	657	David Still, Father	16 July 1867	Revd. S. Pezant
29	23 July 1867	John Power Priscilla Lyden	John Power Priscilla Legerton 💍 1867/6247	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	21 21	Wanganui Wanganui	15 months 9 months	At Christ's Church, Wanganui	67/645		23 July 1867	Revd. L. S. Nicholls
30	23 July, 1867	Wm Isaac Spencer Anna Heatly	William Isaac Spencer Anna Heatly 💍 1867/6250	Bachelor Spinster	Asst. Surgeon, HM 18th Regt.	over under	Wanganui do	2 mos 2 yrs	At Christ's Church, Wanganui	646		July 25	Revd. C. S. Nicholas
31	29 July, 1867	Henry Allen Clery Ann Handley	Henry Allen Clery Ann Handley 💍 1867/6253	Bachelor Spinster	Runholder Milliner	27 20	Wanganui do	2 yrs 20 do	at the Residence of W. H. Handley, Wanganui	649	Martha Handley, Mother	August 14th	Revd. C. S. Nicholas
32	29 July, 1867	John Kennedy Ellen Carl	John Kennedy Ellen Karl 💍 1867/6286	Bachelor Widow	Private in 57th Regt.	24 28	Wanganui do	2 yrs 2 do	Catholic Chapel	658		July 30	Read. J. Pezant
33	5 Aug, 1867	Kenneth Douglas Caroline Jane Nicholls	Kenneth Douglas Caroline John Nicholls 💍 1867/6256	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	over under	Wanganui do	3 yrs 14	At Christ's Church, Wanganui	648		Aug 17	Revd. C. S. Nicholas
34	22 Aug, 1867	Samuel Gibbons Mary Ann Hewitt	Samuel Gibbons Mary Ann Hewitt 💍 1867/6259	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	23 22	Wanganui do	2 1 do	Wesleyan Church	649		Aug 22	Read. C. S. Nicholas

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).