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 211

District of Wanganui 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
43	Oct 9 1867	George Sloper Mary Jane Cole	George Flyger Mary Jane Code 💍 1867/6229 George Baker Mary Jane Vincent 💍 1867/4306 George Hayward Mary Jane Fitness 💍 1867/5590 George James Mary Anne Rowling 💍 1867/6907	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	22 17	Wanganui do	2 yrs 2 yrs	At the Manse	639	Ed. Bowes Guardian	Oct 9	Revd Jas' Treadwell
44	Oct 28	John Marchmont Mary Halford		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	28 26	Wanganui do	10 days 1 yr	At Christ Church Wanganui	650		Oct 29	Revd C. H. S. Nicholls
45	Oct 23	George Rowe Anna Thick	George Howe Anna Cole Thick 💍 1867/6322	Widower Spinster	Publican	42 30	Wanganui do	10 yrs 4 mos	Church Putiki	671		Oct 25	Revd B Taylor
46	Oct 26	Charles John Thomas Harriet Homer	Charles John Thomas Harriet Horner 💍 1867/6325	Bachelor Spinster	Publican	31 22	Wanganui do	5 yrs 5 yrs	St Paul's Church Putiki	672		Oct 26	Revd B. Taylor
47	Oct 31	Daniel Burke Mary Luckshultz	Daniel Burke Beatrice Mary Amelia Archibald 💍 1867/6289	Bachelor Spinster	Servant to Rev. W. Williams	26 22	Wanganui do	6 mos 3 yrs	Roman Catholic Chapel	659		Oct 31	Revd J. Pezant
48	Nov 4	Michael Cummins Fanny Mullins	Michael Cunningham Frances Mullins 💍 1867/6292	Bachelor Spinster	Private in 18th R. H.M. 18 Regt	28 17	Wanganui do	2 yrs 16 mos	At the Roman Catholic Chapel	660	Catharine Mullin her Mother	Nov 4	Revd J. Pezant
49	Nov 12	John Grange Maria Doyle	John Grange Maria Doyle 💍 1867/6295	Bachelor Spinster	Private in the H.M. 18 Regt do	27 25	Wanganui do	1 yr 18 mos	At the Roman Catholic Chapel	661		Nov 12	Revd J. Pezant
50	Nov 12	Thomas Humber Margaret Driscoll	Thomas Kinsella Margaret Driscoll 💍 1867/4228	Bachelor Spinster	Servant of Rev. W.	30 25	Wanganui do	2 yrs 8 mos	Catholic Chapel	662		Nov 12	Revd J. Pezant
51	Nov 13	Joll R Anderson Rebecca Black	Robert William Anderson Rebecca Burke 💍 1867/6334	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer Publican	28 21	Wanganui E. Coast	5 yrs 4 mos	R. Black's Hotel Wanganui	695		Nov 13	Revd Robt Rowland
52	Nov 14	James Connett Mary Diver	James Conway Mary Sweeny 💍 1867/5749	Bachelor Widow	Pensioner H.M. 18 Regt	26 18	Wanganui do	1 year 16 mos	At the Roman Catholic Chapel	663		Nov 14	Revd J. Pezant
53	Nov 14	Daniel Ross Ann Gordon	Daniel Munn Hogg Annie Gordon 💍 1867/6238	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 25	Wanganui do	14 yrs 1 yr	At the Manse Wanganui	642		Nov 14	Revd J. Hogg

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).