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 489

District of Timaru 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
153	July 12th	John Anderson Martha Frugth	John Anderson Martha Smyth 💍 1867/8077	Bachelor Spinster	Lineman Servant	35 25	Timaru Timaru	15 m 10 m	The furthering belonging to Dr McLean Timaru	1270		July 12th	Rev. Thos. B. Richardson
154	July 17th	George Irvine Hannah Higgs	George Taverner Hannah Higgs 💍 1867/8038	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer Servant	27 17	Waimate Timaru	3 years 3 years	Residence of John Higgs Timaru	1256	John Higgs Father	July 17th	Rev. George Barclay
155	July 17th	Albert Henson Kate Isbister	Albert Henson Rate Sherly 💍 1867/8047	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer Servant	25 24	Waimate Makikihi	2 years 6 m	Residence of John Higgs Timaru	1209		July 17th	Rev. George Barclay
156	July 31st	William Babbington Harriet Jane Brassell		Bachelor Spinster	Station Manager	28 17	Timaru Timaru	3 days 4 years	St Mary's Church Timaru	1264	George Brassell Father	July 31st	Rev. George Foster
157	Aug 8th	George Brien Harriet Bussey	George Brien Harriett Busby 💍 1867/8041	Widower Spinster	Storeman	32 23	Timaru Timaru	4 years 4 days	Residence of Robert Irvine Timaru	1259		Aug 8th	Rev. George Barclay
158	Sept 18th	William Robertson Margaret Ross	Wm Robertson Margt Ross 💍 1867/8044	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	29 29	Timaru Timaru	3 days 10 days	Commercial Hotel	1258		Sept 19th	Rev. George Barclay
159	Sept 16th	Nathaniel Easton Louisa Brassell	Nathaniel Barton Louisa Brassell 💍 1867/8065	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Servant	20 16	Timaru Timaru	4 years 4 years	St Mary's Church Timaru	1265	Elizabeth Greenwood mother George Brassell Father	Sept 15th	Rev. George Foster

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).