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 554

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
46	6 March 1868	Robert M. Bracken Margaret Phair	Robert McCrackan Margaret Phair 💍 1868/8891	Bachelor Spinster	Boot maker	31 18	Green Island Dunedin	5 years 7 months	the house of Robert Phair, Maitland Street, Dunedin	2080	Robert Phair, Father	6 March 1868	Rev. M. Watt
47	7 March 1868	Richard Prout Mary Leckie	Richard Prout Mary Leckie 💍 1868/10387	Bachelor Widow	Seaman	38 35	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 6 yrs	Knox church Dunedin	1963		7 March 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
48	7 March 1868	Christian Archer Mary Brown	Christian Archer Mary Brown 💍 1868/4260	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	35 24	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 14 months	the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	19524		7 March 1868	Registrar of Marriages
49	9 March 1868	George Whe Bunsford Helen Duncan	George Duke Hansford Helen Duncan 💍 1868/10390	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	37 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 4 months	Knox Church Dunedin	1984		9 March 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
50	14 March 1868	Thomas Litchfield Stanley Isabella Chisholm	Thomas Litchfield Stanley Isabella Chisholm 💍 1868/10396	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	25	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 10 months	the house of James Chisholm, Filleul Street Dunedin	1987		14 March 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
51	16 March 1868	William Parker Street Margaret Black	William Parker Street Margaret Black 💍 1868/10048	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk, Resident Magistrate's Court	23 24	Andersons bay Dunedin	1 year 4 years	the house of Mr. Black, London Street Dunedin	1861		31 March 1868	Rev. Thomas Burns
52	16 March 1868	Charles Smith Hannah Bell	Charles Smith Hannah Bell 💍 1868/10393	Widower Spinster	Clerk to the Provincial Council	40 23	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 5 years	Messrs Bell's house, Cumberland Street Dunedin	1985		16 March 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
53	17 March 1868	William Evans Phoebe Westlake	William Evans Phoebe Westlake 💍 1868/10105	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	33 18	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 2 yrs	St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1882	No Person to give Consent	17 March 1868	Rev. E. G. Edwards
54	17 March 1868	George Carruthers Mariane Louise Parr	George Carruthers Marianne Louise Parr 💍 1868/4305	Widower Widow	Coal Merchant	37 29	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 2 yrs	the house of Mrs Parr, Dundas Street Dunedin	1986		17 March 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart

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).