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 388

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
69	Nov 7th	Thomas Lyee Honora Grace Fitzgerald	Thomas Joyce Honora Mary Fitzgerald 💍 1868/8522	Bachelor Spinster	Miner None	31 Years 25 Years	Greymonth Do	3 Years 18 [UNCLEAR]	Rom. C. Connell's Hotel Greymonth	1356	Nov 16	Rev. Father Bonetti
70	Nov 17	Bazile Brennan Helen Grace Brennan	Bazile Bremond Helen Gereathy 💍 1868/8525	Bachelor Widow	Storekeeper Barmaid	30 Years 26 Years	Greymonth Same	7 Years 2 Years	Roman Catholic Chapel Greymonth	1359	Nov 17	[UNCLEAR]
71	December 5	Francis Hamilton Anne Sarah Fowler	Francis Hamilton Jane Sarah Fowler 💍 1868/8441	Bachelor Widow	Merchant	27 Years 24 Years	Greymonth Same	3 Years 4 Years	Melbourne Hotel Greymonth	1326	December 12	Rev. John Fra
72	December 9th	Te Koweti Turanga Ripeka Patience	Te Kowati Turanga Ripeka Patiere 💍 1868/8486	Bachelor Spinster	[UNCLEAR] Same	40 26 Years	Bruce Bay do	1 Week do	Church of England Greymonth	1342	December 26	Revd. Mr. Bean
73	December 26th	Isaac Turner Ellen Finlayson	Isaac Turner Helen Findlayson 💍 1868/8444	Bachelor Spinster	Digger None	27 Years 21 Years	Canoe Creek Greymonth	9 Months 8 Years	Wesleyan Chapel Cobden Greymonth	1329	December 26	Revd. Mr. Thor
74	December 26	Hakofu Markonza Inakareta Kahoki	Makopa Waihongo Makareta Kahoki 💍 1868/8489	Bachelor Spinster	[UNCLEAR] Same	35 Years 25 Years	Greymonth do	1 Week do	Church of England Greymonth	1343	December 26	Rev. H. Benn

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).