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 478

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
1752	24 July 1868	Albert Godfrey Saunders Annie Councel	Albert Godfrey Saunders Anna Connell 💍 1868/6017	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Servant	24 21	Christchurch	3 days 3 Days	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	476		24 July 1868	Rev. Father Chatan
1753	24 July 1868	George Arkle Jane Lilley	George Arkle Jane Lilly 💍 1868/5918	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	25 19	Christchurch	4 Days 13 mths	In the Wesleyan Chapel Durham St.	443	there is no person having authority to give consent	24 July 1868	Rev. C. L. Buddle
1754	25 July 1868	Francis James Smith Ellen Heriton	Francis James Smith Ellen Hinton 💍 1868/6461	Bachelor Spinster	Watchmaker	27 24	Christchurch 24 Springfield Road	1 year 10 years	In the Church of St. Luke	630		25 July 1868	Rev. E. A. Lingard
1755	28 July 1868	Hugh Andrews Mary Eliza Hancock	Hugh Andrews Mary Eliza Hancock 💍 1868/6386	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	31 20	Christchurch	2 years 3 years	In the Church of St. Michael	605	Thomas Hancock, Father	12 August 1868	The Very Rev. Dean Jacobs
1756	29 July 1868	James Horriblow Jemima M. Owen		Widower Spinster	Carpenter Servant	35 45	Christchurch	2 Days 3 mths	In the Church of St. John	660		29 July 1868	Rev. C. Bryen
1757	30 July 1868	Alfred Yarcoe Martha Maine	Alfred Varcoe Martha Main 💍 1868/5921	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 21	Papauni Papauni	4 years 10 years	In the House of Mr. J. Smith	444		30 July 1868	Rev. J. Buddle
1758	1 August 1868	Thomas Clarkson Grace Potspole	Thomas Clarkson Grace Potts Pole 💍 1868/6254	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	27 20	Christchurch Papauni	2 years 2 years	In the House	558	There is no person having authority to give consent	1 August 1868	Rev. C. Fraser
1759	1 August 1868	Matthews Rodgers Catherine Thompson	Mathew Rodgers Welsh Catherine Thompson 💍 1868/6248	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	35 24	Christchurch Christchurch	3 weeks 3 weeks	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	555		1 August 1868	Rev. C. Fraser
1760	1 August 1868	Henry Lillyman Maria Thompson	Henry Lillyman Maria Thompson 💍 1868/6245	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	34 33	Lincoln Christchurch	3 years 3 weeks	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	555		1 August 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 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).