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 672

District of Invercargill Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
339	17 January 1867	William Gardner Ann Lawrie	William Gardiner Ann Lawrie 💍 1867/10120	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	21 18	Mataura Mataura	6 months 1 year	Ferry House	1976	Catherine Lawrie, mother	17 January 1867	J. Alexander
340	18 January 1867	Allan Hall Janet McNab	Allan Hall Janet McNab 💍 1867/6946	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 22	Oterramika Oterramika	3.5 years 3 years	In the house of the said Allan Hall, Oterramika	1975		18 January 1867	J. Alexander
341	1 February 1867	Robert Rae Isabella Rae	Robert Rae Isabella Rae 💍 1867/10144	Bachelor Spinster	Gunsmith	33 26	Invercargill Invercargill	4 years 5 days	In the house of Samuel Thompson	1984		1 February 1867	A. H. Stobo
342	13 February 1867	Roderick McIvor Margaret Campbell	Roderick McIvor Margaret Campbell 💍 1867/10075	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	32 23	Waiaw Invercargill	4 years 2 months	In the house of the said Roderick McIvor	1958		13 February 1867	J. T. Shaw
343	18 February 1867	John Morton Jessie Finlayson Stewart	John Morton Jessie Finlayson Stuart 💍 1867/10189	Widower Spinster	Farmer	44 28	Wallacetown Wallacetown	7 years 2 years	In the house of the said John Morton at Wallacetown	2001		18 February 1867	A. Stevens
344	22 February 1867	Robert Phillips Isabella Jane Anderson	Robert Phillips Isabella Jane Anderson 💍 1867/10078	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 19	Mains Bush Mains Bush	4 years 2 years	At Mains Bush	959		22 February 1867	J. T. Shaw
345	22 February 1867	John Angus Mitchell Margery McIntosh	John Angus Mitchell Marjory McIntosh 💍 1867/10123	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	20 20	Oterramika Oterramika	3.5 years 12 months	In the house of Alexander Mitchell at Oterramika	1999		22 February 1867	J. Alexander
346	9 March 1867	George Frederick Richardson Augusta Marie Isabella Battersea White	George Frederich Richardson Augusta Marie Isabella Patterson White 💍 1867/10063	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	29 19	Invercargill Invercargill	4 years 6 years	In the English Church at Invercargill	1902	Thomas John White, Father	9 March 1867	W. P. Tanner

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).