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 501

District of Oamaru 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
142	14 October 1867	George Holmes McKenzie Mary Steel	George Holmes McKenzie Mary Steel 💍 1867/8773	Bachelor Spinster	Boatman	28 21	Oamaru Oamaru	7 years 5 Months	Dwelling house Mr Charles Rivers Oamaru	1513		14 Oct	Rev. Charles Connor
143	22 October 1867	Robert Little Mary Brown	Robert Little Mary Brown 💍 1867/8830	Bachelor Spinster	Shearer	25 19	Moeraki Kakanui	2 years 18 months	Dwelling house of Mr. Donaldson Kakanui	1532		22	John Ryley
144	22 October 1867	John Little Mary Campbell	John Little Mary Campbell 💍 1867/8827	Bachelor Spinster	Shearer	30 19	Moeraki Hampden	18 months 5 years	Dwelling house of Mr. Charles Campbell, Hampden	1531		22	John Ryley
145	5 November 1867	William Sarell Harriett Ward	William Russell Harriett Ward 💍 1867/8833 Thomas Capel Tilly Harriett Ward 💍 1867/5404	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 21	Hampden Hampden	3 Years 4 Years	Dwelling house of Mr. Ward, Hampden	1533		Nov 5	John Ryley
146	7 November 1867	George Howsay Taylor Mary Barraclough	George Ramsay Taylor Mary Barraclough 💍 1867/8776	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 17	Oamaru Oamaru	7 Years 5 Years	Dwelling house of Mr. N.C. Gilchrist, Brookfield	1514	John Barraclough, Father	9	Charles Connor
147	20 November 1867	James Grave Margaret Ann Smilie	James Grave Margaret Ann Smith 💍 1867/8800	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	22 24	Oamaru Oamaru	4 months 12 Mons	Wesleyan Chapel, Oamaru	1522		20	James Alfred Taylor
148	28 November 1867	Henry Folding Mary Buchanan	Henry Fielding Mary Buchanan 💍 1867/8836	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	24 18	Hampden Hampden	4 Months 3 months	Dwelling house of Mr. McKay, Hampden			28	John Ryley
149	19 December 1867	Allen Forsyth Jane Stacey		Bachelor Spinster	Editor	29 24	Oamaru Oamaru	3 days 3 days	Dwelling house of Mr. Robert Hous, Oamaru	1524		Dec 19	James A. Taylor
150	23 December 1867	William Turnbull Mary McDonald	William Turnbull Mary McDonald 💍 1867/8803	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	26 21	Oamaru Andersons Bay	3 mos 3 months	White Star Hotel, Oamaru	1529		23	James A. Taylor
151	24 December 1867	John Tweedie Isabella Bell	John Sinclair Isabella Bell 💍 1867/8809	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	40 24	Oamaru Oamaru	3 mos 5 mos	Dwelling house of Mr. Riddle, Oamaru	1523		24	James A. Taylor
152	28 December 1867	Daniel Roessler Elizabeth Scott	Daniel Rossiter Rudduck Elizabeth Scott 💍 1867/8812	Bachelor Spinster	Labor Domestic Servant	30 22	Oamaru Oamaru	2 years 2 years	Wesleyan Chapel, Oamaru	1520		28	James A. Taylor

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).