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 252

District of Quarter ending

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

14 July 1868

Philip Jensins
Eliza Cary

Philip Jenkins
Eliza Carey
💍 1868/10523

Bachelor
Widow

Master Mariner

38
34

Wellington
Wellington

13 years
many years

St Peter's Church Willis Street

924

14 July 1868

Rev. A. Stock B.A

No	85
Date of Notice	14 July 1868
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Philip Jensins	Eliza Cary
BDM Match (92%)	Philip Jenkins	Eliza Carey
	💍 1868/10523
Condition	Bachelor	Widow
Profession	Master Mariner
Age	38	34
Dwelling Place	Wellington	Wellington
Length of Residence	13 years	many years
Marriage Place	St Peter's Church Willis Street
Folio	924
Consent
Date of Certificate	14 July 1868
Officiating Minister	Rev. A. Stock B.A

21 July 1868

William Robert
Mary Ann Card

William Robson
Mary Ann Card
💍 1868/7208

Bachelor
Spinster

Stockman

28
23

Porirua
Wellington

6 years
1 year & 8 months

Residence of Philip Jensins in Garrett Street Wellington

889

21 July 1868

Rev. John Moir

No	86
Date of Notice	21 July 1868
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	William Robert	Mary Ann Card
BDM Match (89%)	William Robson	Mary Ann Card
	💍 1868/7208
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Stockman
Age	28	23
Dwelling Place	Porirua	Wellington
Length of Residence	6 years	1 year & 8 months
Marriage Place	Residence of Philip Jensins in Garrett Street Wellington
Folio	889
Consent
Date of Certificate	21 July 1868
Officiating Minister	Rev. John Moir

21 July 1868

Richard Jenkins
Letitia Nixon

Bachelor
Spinster

Plasterer

28
30

Wellington
Wellington

11 years
4 years

Residence of Richard Jenkins in Daniel Street Wellington

900

5 August 1868

Rev. J. Moir

No	87
Date of Notice	21 July 1868
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Richard Jenkins	Letitia Nixon
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Plasterer
Age	28	30
Dwelling Place	Wellington	Wellington
Length of Residence	11 years	4 years
Marriage Place	Residence of Richard Jenkins in Daniel Street Wellington
Folio	900
Consent
Date of Certificate	5 August 1868
Officiating Minister	Rev. J. Moir

22 July 1868

John Sinclair
Isabel Wood

John Sinclair
Isabel Wood
💍 1868/7115

Bachelor
Spinster

Farmer

24
23

Wainuiomata
Wainuiomata

24 years
16 years

Church of England Lower Hutt

857

22 July 1868

Rev. John Edward Keating

No	88
Date of Notice	22 July 1868
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	John Sinclair	Isabel Wood
	💍 1868/7115
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Farmer
Age	24	23
Dwelling Place	Wainuiomata	Wainuiomata
Length of Residence	24 years	16 years
Marriage Place	Church of England Lower Hutt
Folio	857
Consent
Date of Certificate	22 July 1868
Officiating Minister	Rev. John Edward Keating

23 July 1868

Peter Speedy
Matilda Milne

Peter Speedy
Matilda Milne
💍 1868/7190

Bachelor
Spinster

Sheep Farmer

26
19

Lower Hutt
Wellington

20 years
19 years

Residence of Rev. John Moir, Wellington

883

Alexander Milne, Father

7 August 1868

Rev. John Moir

No	89
Date of Notice	23 July 1868
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Peter Speedy	Matilda Milne
	💍 1868/7190
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Sheep Farmer
Age	26	19
Dwelling Place	Lower Hutt	Wellington
Length of Residence	20 years	19 years
Marriage Place	Residence of Rev. John Moir, Wellington
Folio	883
Consent	Alexander Milne, Father
Date of Certificate	7 August 1868
Officiating Minister	Rev. John Moir

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 1903. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).