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 453

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
151	2 January 1868	James Robertson Hannah Buck	James Robertson Hannah Bucket 💍 1868/6278	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	25 23	Christchurch Christchurch	4 years 1 year	In the Scotch Church	566		2 January 1868	Rev. G. Grant
152	4 January 1868	George Lamb Mary Ann McKinney	George Lamb Mary Ann McWhinney 💍 1868/6053 George Elson Mary Ann Kerin 💍 1868/10252	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	24 22	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	489		4 January 1868	Rev. C. Fraser
153	4 January 1868	Charles Edward Howard Marion Brown Wilson	Charles Edward Howard Marion Brown Wilson 💍 1868/6872	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	24 20	Lyttelton Christchurch	1 year 3 years	In the House of Mr. Howard	774	Jane Wilson, mother	6 January 1868	Rev. Alexander Reid
154	7 January 1868	Samuel Ashton Elizabeth Bedwell		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	38 29	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 3 months	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	490		7 January 1868	Rev. C. Fraser
155	9 January 1868	Hugh Buchanan Helen Rose	Hugh Buchanan Helen Rose 💍 1868/6062	Widower Spinster	Stockowner	48 25	Christchurch Opawa	4 days 1 month	In the House of Mr. M. Kay	492		9 January 1868	Rev. C. Fraser
156	9 January 1868	Alexander Fraser Agnes Scott	Alexander Fraser Agnes Scott 💍 1868/6059 Alexander Higgie Annie Scott 💍 1868/7562	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	30 19	Christchurch Selwyn	6 years 2 years	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	491	William Scott, father	9 January 1868	Rev. C. Fraser
157	11 January 1868	John Doyle Sarah Glassie		Widower Spinster	Farmer Servant	31 28	Leeston Papanui Road	3 years 1 year	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	499		6 February 1868	Rev. C. Fraser
158	13 January 1868	Thomas King Catherine Welsh	Thomas King Catherine Welsh 💍 1868/5942	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	26 18	Lyttelton Christchurch	3 years 4 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	469	There is no person in the colony having authority to give consent	29 January 1868	Rev. Father Chatague
159	15 January 1868	Frederick Foulds Jane Rea Costley		Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker Dressmaker	21 21	Christchurch Christchurch	.5 years 5 years	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	573		15 January 1868	Rev. C. Fraser

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 1899. 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).