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 238

District of Wellington 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
93	September 4th 1867	Archibald Ingram Elizabeth Sophia Harper	Archibald Ingram Elizabeth Sophia Harper 💍 1867/5998	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 20	Rangitikei at present Wellington Wellington	nearly 2 weeks 10 years	St. Paul's Church Thorndon	562	George Frederick Harper, Father	September 4th 1867	The Rev. P.A. Trewavell M.A. and others
94	September 11th 1867	John Horsbrugh Ross Matilda Cliland	John Horsburgh Ross Matilda Cleland 💍 1867/5824	Bachelor Spinster	Policeman	30 21	Wellington Hutt	2 1/2 years many years	Residence of Mr. Churgh Cleland Hutt	561		September 11th 1867	The Rev. John Hall and others
95	September 16th 1867	William Henry Tobin Catherine McCafferty	William Henry Robin Catherine McCafferty 💍 1867/6100	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	25 18	Wellington Wellington	1 year many years	Roman Catholic Cathedral Thorndon	577	Patrick McCafferty, Father	September 16th 1867	The Rt. Rev. Dr. Viard, Roman Catholic Bishop of Wellington and others
96	September 21st 1867	Edward Gill Sophia Sarah Blakeford	Edward Gell Sophia Sarah Drakeford 💍 1867/5875	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	23 27	Wellington Wellington	23 years about 3 years	Residence of James E Fielder	520		September 21st 1867	The Rev. William Honk and others
97	September 23rd 1867	Jessey Mexted Nancy Thompson	Jessey Mexted Nancy Thompson 💍 1867/6154	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	21 19	Porirua Road Porirua Road	many years about 14 years	Residence of the Rev. J. Waters Sydney Street	611	Eliza Ford, Mother	September 23rd 1867	The Rev. J. Waters and others
98	September 24th 1867	Lowther Broad Isabella Mary Bunny	Louther Broad Isabella Mary Bunny 💍 1867/6103	Bachelor Spinster	Resident Magistrate none	27 18	At present Wellington late Arrowtown Otago Wellington	1 month 4 years 13 years	St. Mary's Cathedral	598	Henry Bunny, Father	September 24th 1867	The Right Rev. Dr. Viard and others

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).