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 487

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
1827	4 December 1868	Thomas Grengove Margaret Green	Thomas Trengove Margaret Gould 💍 1868/6482 Thomas Scrivener Margaret Parker 💍 1868/5075	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer Servant	27 22	Christetur ch Do	6 mths 2 years	In the Church of St. Luke	638	22 December 1868	Rev. E. A. Lingard
1828	9 December 1868	William Bailie Mary Ann Cawood	William Baile Mary Ann Camac 💍 1868/6638 William Dale Mary Ann Taylor 💍 1868/4970 William Cather Mary Ann Ward 💍 1868/5309 William Robson Mary Ann Card 💍 1868/7208 William White Mary Ann Peagram 💍 1868/6116 William Sandilands Mary Ann Walker 💍 1869/8796 William Irwin Mary Ann Whorton 💍 1868/8435 William Jas Burling Mary Ann Clark 💍 1868/7628 William Miller Mary Anne Murtagh 💍 1868/5837 William Withey Mary Ann Orme 💍 1868/6404 William Harvey Mary Ann Turner 💍 1868/4865 William Morgan Mary Ann Lowlar 💍 1868/9745 William Morris Mary Ann Mudgway 💍 1868/7301 William Hillier Mary Jane Scott 💍 1868/6851	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	26 21	Selwyn Christchurch	2 years 2 mths	In the Scotch Church [UNCLEAR] Street	692	9 December 1868	Rev. C. Fraser
1829	10 December 1868	Andrew Horne Margaret Welsh	Andrew Maxwell Margaret Welsh 💍 1869/9312	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	26 23	Selwyn Springston	2 years 4 mths	In the Riccarton Church	2327	28 December 1868	Rev. C. Bowen
1830	11 December 1868	Joseph C. Meagher Dorothy Cooper Todd	Joseph O'Meagher Dorothy Cooper Todd 💍 1868/4447	Bachelor Spinster	Solicitor	30 22	Opawa Do	3 Days 2 mths	In the Opawa Church	663	11 December 1868	Rev. O'Bryen Hoare
1831	12 December 1868	Thomas George Moule Martha Self	Thomas George Moule Martha Selfe 💍 1868/6479	Widower Widow	Cabinetmaker	39 46	Christchurch Do	5 years 5 years	In the Church of St. Luke	637	12 December 1868	Rev. E. A. Lingard
1832	13 December 1868	Peter Fearn Sarah Cameron		Bachelor Spinster	Miller	38 28	Christchurch Prebbleton	3 Days 3 Days	In the House of Rev. Campbell	[UNCLEAR]	15 December 1868	Rev. J. Campbell
1833	14 December 1868	Joseph Martin Emily Ann Adams	Joseph Martin Emily Ann Adams 💍 1869/7809	Bachelor Spinster	Ironmonger	27 23	Christchurch Do	5 years 4 years	In the House of William Smallwood	1210	17 December 1868	Rev. G. Grant
1834	18 December 1868	Thomas Doig Sarah Taylor	Thomas Doig Sarah Taylor 💍 1868/6050	Bachelor Spinster	Stockdriver Servant	25 21	Christchurch Heathcote Valley	4 years 2 years	In the Church of St. Mary	1488	18 December 1868	Rev. J. G. Cholmondeley
1835	23 December 1868	Robert McKowelle Mary Jane Barmer	Robert McDowall Mary Jane Balmer 💍 1868/6419	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	25 25	Christchurch Do	1 year 2 years	In the Church of St. Michael	616	23 December 1868	The Very Rev. Dean Jacobs

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).