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 499

District of Oamaru 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
128	July 4	Alexander Scott Margaret Orr	Alexander Scott Margaret Orr 💍 1867/8791	Bachelor Spinster	Block driver	28 22	Oamaru Oamaru	14 days Ann Hill 5 years	Dwelling house	1519		July 4	Rev. James Alpros Taylor
129	July 9	Robert Cumming Craig Eliza Moon	Robert Crawford Laing Eliza Moon 💍 1867/8788	Widower Widow	Bootmaker	40 31	Oamaru Oamaru	3 years 3 months	Dwelling house	1518		July 9	Rev. James Alpros Taylor
130	July 16	John Morgan Jane Ellison	John Morgan Jane Ellison 💍 1867/8794	Bachelor Spinster	Lime Burner	28 32	White Rock Oamaru	4 Years 4 years	Dwelling house	1520		July 16	Rev. James Alpros Taylor
131	July 22	John Thomson Elizabeth Cameron	John Thomson Elizabeth Cameron 💍 1867/8818	Bachelor Widow	Stonemason	26 30	Oamaru Oamaru	5 Years 5 years	Dwelling house of Elizabeth Cameron, Oamaru	1528		July 22	Rev. John Ryley
132	July 24	Thomas Setter Jane Robertson	Thomas Scatter Jane Robertson 💍 1867/8755	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 26	Oamaru Oamaru	5 days 5 days	Gibson's Cottage	1530		July 24	Rev. Charles Connor
133	July 25	William Doak Margaret Shalders	William Doak Margaret Sheldon 💍 1867/8758	Bachelor Spinster	Quarryman	29 22	White Rock Oamaru	4 years 2 years	At the Manse, Oamaru	1508		July 25	Rev. Charles Connor
134	Aug 1	Samuel Lister Hannah Gibbons	Samuel Lintern Hannah Gibbons 💍 1867/8845	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 22	Oamaru Oamaru	5 months 12 months	St. Luke's Church, Oamaru	1537		Aug 1	Rev. Algernon Gifford
135	Aug. 19	George Parsons Mary Schluter	George Parsons Mary Schleuter 💍 1867/8848	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 26	Boundary Creek Boundary Creek	2 years 6 years	Dwelling house of James Wooden, Oamaru	1538		Aug 19	Rev. Algernon Gifford
136	Aug. 20	James McKeown Mary Young	James McKeown Mary Young 💍 1867/8761	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	21 24	Oamaru Oamaru	5 years 3 years	At the Manse, Oamaru	1509		Aug 20	Rev. Charles Connor
137	Aug 29	John Ellison Jane McPherson	John Ellison Jane McPherson 💍 1867/8821	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	32 21	Hampden Otepopo	2 years 4 years	Dwelling house of Robert McPherson, Otepopo	2241		Aug 29	Rev. John Ryley
138	Aug 31	William Hunt Sarah Carr	William Hunt Sarah Carr 💍 1867/8797	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	29 32	Oamaru Oamaru	9 years 4 Years	Dwelling house of Alexander Carr, Oamaru	1521		Aug 31	Rev. James Alpros Taylor
139	Sept 7	Andrew Hamilton Christina Mathers	Andrew Hamilton Christina Chalmers 💍 1867/8764	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 19	Mount Pleasant White Rock	3 months 2 months	At the Manse, Oamaru	1510	Andrew Chalmers, Father	Sept 7	Rev. Charles Connor

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).