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 407

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
192	9 July 1868	Francis Loch Mulhern Ellen Lulheran	Francis Lock Ellen Sullivan 💍 1868/8717	Bachelor Spinster	Dock Labourer	38 29	Kanieri	3 yrs 15 yrs	All Saints Church	1424		9 July 1868	Rev Arch Harper
193	14	Alexander Littern Esther Mark Hunche	Alexander Aitken Esther Mark 💍 1868/8585	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	34 25	Hokitika	3 yrs 18 m	Private Residence	1378			Rev John Case
194	18	Archibald Prasad Augusta Margaret Phelan		Bach Spinster	Merchant	36 25	Hokitika	2 1/2 yrs 7 years	Private Residence	1380		18	Rev John Case
195	18	Charles Seabrook Sarah Leggy Johnstone	Charles Seabank Sarah Elizabeth Johnston 💍 1868/8720	Bach Spinster	Miller	24 21	Hokitika	3 yrs 14 mos	All Saints Church	1425		18	Rev Arch Harper
196	20	James Fay Bridget McCarl	James Say Bridget McCawe 💍 1868/9790	Bach Spinster	Restaurant Keeper	26 29	Hokitika	18 mos 18 mos	St George's Church	1475		20	Rev. P.H. Dunphy
197	20	Louis Gillot Eliza Buchanan	Louis Gillot Elizabeth Buchanan 💍 1868/8723	Bach Spinster	Storekeeper	29 20	Greymouth	3 yrs 1 mo	All Saints Church	1426		20	Rev Arch Harper
198	20	David Spence Bridget Hepburn	David Spence Bridget Hepburn 💍 1868/8588	Bach Spinster	Baker	25 20	Goldsborough	13 mos 13 mos	Residence	1379	James Hepburn, Guardian	20	Rev John Case
199	21	Ernest Bohlert Bridgit Anne Smith		Bach Spinster	Baker	29 22	Kanieri	18 mos 5 mos	All Saints Church	1428		21	Rev Arch Harper

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).