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 480

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
170	7 August 1868	John Kennedy Eliza Dunn	John Kennedy Eliza Dunn 💍 1868/6023	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	27 26	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 4 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel Christchurch	478		7 August 1868	Rev Father Chat
171	19 August 1868	John Flood Kate O'Neil	John Flood Kate Oneill 💍 1868/6026	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	27 22	Southbridge Christchurch	4 years 5 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel Christchurch	479		19 August 1868	Rev Father Chat
172	20 August 1868	James Courtney Jane Price	James Courtney Jane Price 💍 1868/6464	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 17	Little River Christchurch	3 years 1 year	In the Church of St. Luke	631	Jane Price, Mother	20 August 1868	Rev C.A. Lingard
173	24 August 1868	George Edward Freestone Frances Bland Fleming	George Edward Freestone Frances Bland Hemming 💍 1868/6503	Widower Spinster	Clerk	26 26	Riccarton Papanui Road	2 years 1 week	In the Merivale Church	645		24 August 1868	Rev L Moore
174	26 August 1868	Robert Thomas Margaret Ward	Robert Thomas Margaret Ward 💍 1868/4456	Widower Spinster	Milkman Servant	39 27	Wilson's Bridge [UNCLEAR]	10 days 2 weeks	In the Opawa Church	487		26 August 1868	Rev L. Cholmondeley
175	27 August 1868	George Henry Treleaver Hannah Triggs	George Henry Treleaven Hannah Triggs 💍 1868/6506	Bachelor Spinster	Corn dealer	26 21	Christchurch Papanui Road	6 years 2 years	In the Merivale Church	646		27 August 1868	Rev L Moore
176	31 August 1868	Smith Sullivan Amelia Kennedy	Smith Sullivan Amelia Kennedy 💍 1868/6029	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	30 23	Halswell Christchurch	3 years 1 year	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	480		31 August 1868	Rev Father Chat
177	1 September 1868	John Bradshaw Eliza Stothers	John Bradshaw Ann Eliza Stothers 💍 1868/6389	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	22 21	Southbridge Christchurch	2 years 6 weeks	In the Church of St Michael Christchurch	606		1 September 1868	The Very Rev Dean
178	7 September 1868	Andrew Fraser McLean Christina Macintosh	Andrew Fraser McLean Christina McIntosh 💍 1868/6296	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	32 25	Christchurch Litchfield Street	1 week 3 weeks	In the Scotch Church Waimati	573		7 September 1868	Rev G Grant

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).