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 555

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
55	21 March 1868	Duncan McPherson Elizabeth Lindsay Whyte	Duncan McPherson Elizabeth Lindsay White 💍 1868/8936	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	30 25	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 4 yrs	In the house of Mr. Ure - Montecillo Dunedin	68/2097		21 March 1868	Rev. R. Serymegeour
56	24 March 1868	Albert Walter Elizabeth Thomas	Albert Walter Elizabeth Thomas 💍 1868/10312	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	25 18	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 4 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1955	Paul Thomas, father	24 March 1868	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
57	25 March 1868	John Davies Angline Sharkie	John Davies Angline Sherkie 💍 1868/10093	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	38 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 5 yrs	In the Baptist Church Dunedin	1878		25 March 1868	Rev. Mr. Box
58	26 March 1868	John Young Agnes McLaren	John Young Agnes McLelland 💍 1868/8894	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 22	East Taieri Green Island	4 yrs 18 months	In the house of James Robertson Green Island	2081		26 March 1868	Rev. M. Watt
59	27 March 1868	Thomas Livingston Eliza Heany	Thomas Livingston Eliza Hay 💍 1868/10213	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	27 20	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 6 months	In the house of Thomas McLennan Peninsula	1920	No person to give consent	27 March 1868	Rev. Mr. Bisagg
60	28 March 1868	Henry Custance de Bathe Brandon Anna Maria Wilson	Henry Eustace De Battue Brandon Anna Maria Wilson 💍 1868/10108	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Service	28 18	Dunedin Dunedin	7 days 2 yrs	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1883	Frederick John Wilson, father	28 March 1868	Rev. G. G. Edwards
61	30 March 1868	Thomas King Sarah Louisa Wheeler	Thomas King Sarah Louisa Wheeler 💍 1868/10042	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	29 22	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 month	In the house of the Rev. Thomas Burns D.D. Dunedin	1859		30 March 1868	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
62	30 March 1868	James Haswell Agnes Miller	James Haswell Agnes Miller 💍 1868/10045	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	29 23	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 6 months	In the house of William Kidston Cumberland Street Dunedin	1860		30 March 1868	Rev. R. Serymgeour

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).