Intentions to Marry, 1868

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840380, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 248

District of Quarter ending

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
67	12 May 1868	Charles Young Susannah Enright	Charles Young Susannah Enright 💍 1868/7202	Widower Widow	Machinist Dressmaker	nearly 40 years 26 years	Wellington Wellington	2 years 3 mos	Wellington Restaurant	889		12 May 1868	Rev. John Moir fours
68	13 May 1868	Thomas Carr Sarah Ann Jenkins	Thomas Carr Sarah Ann Jenkins 💍 1868/7076	Widower Widow	Bailer Makin	49 years 52 years	Wellington do	11 years 11 years	Residence of Thos Carr, Little Taramaki street	844		27 May 1868	Rev. W. M. Hall
69	20 May 1868	Alfred George Bertie Willoughty Mary Frances Grace	Alfred George Bertie-Willoughby Mary Frances Grace 💍 1868/7109	Bachelor Spinster	Banki' Clerk	31 years 21 years	Wellington Wainuiomata	7 years 15 years	St James' Church Hutt	855		20 May 1868	Rev. J. E. Herring
70	26 May 1868	John Edward Mayes Mary Ann Lloyd	John Edward Hayes Mary Anne Lloyd 💍 1868/7178	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber	23 years 28 years	Wellington do	1 week 1 week	St Paul's Church Thorndon	879		26 May 1868	Rev. J. H. Maxwell
71	27 May 1868	John William Allman Marshant Maria Elise Wright	John William Allman Marchant Maria Elise Wright 💍 1868/7304	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	26 years 17 17 years	Wellington Wellington	about 3 year 17 years	St Peters Church Willis Street	921	Maria Wright, Mother	27 May 1868	Rev. A. Stock
72	28 May 1868	Frederick William Meyenberg Anna Gasbrook	Frederick William Meyenberg Anna Galbert 💍 1868/7139	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	29 years 22 years	Wellington Wellington	1 week 3 days	Residence of Rev William Kirk, Manners Street	866		29 May 1868	Rev. H. Wish
73	1 June 1868	James Sexton Mary Dane	James Sextan Mary Lane 💍 1868/7454 James Holden Mary Ryan 💍 1868/9727 James Johnston Mary Boyce 💍 1868/4471 James South Mary Martin 💍 1868/6206	Bachelor Spinster	Ship Cook	32 year 22 years	Wellington Wellington	3 years many years	Roman Catholic Cathedral, Known as St Mary's, Thorndon	923		1 June 1868	Rg. Rev. H. Viardell

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).