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 562

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
108	15 June 1868	Duncan Bain Jane Stuart	Duncan Bain Jane Stuart 💍 1868/10456	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	33 23	Dunedin Dunedin	8 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of Duncan Bain Great King Street Dunedin	2007	15 June 1868	Revd. M. Stuart
109	16 June 1868	Frederick Thomson Mary Newburn	Frederick Thomson Mary Mewburn 💍 1868/10159	Bachelor Spinster	Hawker	27 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 1 year	In the house of Mr. Jacobs Filleul Street Dunedin	1902	16 June 1868	Rev. a. R. Fitchett
110	16 June 1868	John Londevold Lavinia Paine	John Londevold Lavinia Paine 💍 1868/10162	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 27	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of Mr. Jacobs Filleul Street Dunedin	1903	16 June 1868	Revd. a. R. Fitchett
111	20 June 1868	Alexander Boyne Mary Dawson	Alexander Boyne Mary Dawson 💍 1868/10459	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	31 29	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 3 days	In the house of John Dritthen bastte Street Dunedin	2008	20 June 1868	Revd. M. Stuart
112	20 June 1868	James Pirie Elizabeth Mollison	James Pirie Elizabeth Mollison 💍 1868/8900	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 29	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of the Rev. R. Connebee Views Street Dunedin	2084	20 June 1868	Rev. R. Connebee
113	20 June 1868	John Henry Hall Elizabeth Haigh	John Henry Hull Elizabeth Haigh 💍 1868/10192	Widower Spinster	Laborer	35 29	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 10 months	In St. Peters Church baversham	1913	20 June 1868	Rev. E. He Gran
114	20 June 1868	Frederick Stone Lilias Inglis	Frederick Stone Lilias Ingles 💍 1868/10324	Widower Widow	Butcher	29 25	Dunedin Dunedin	10 yrs 5 days	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1960	20 June 1868	Registrar of Marr
115	22 June 1868	Andrew Nicol Margaret Patrick	Andrew Nicol Margaret Patrick 💍 1868/8906	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	31 25	Dunedin Tomahawk	5 yrs 20 yrs	In the house of James Patrick Tomahawk	2086	22 June 1868	Rev. I He Mc Nau
116	22 June 1868	John Smith Eliza Anetta Cast	John Smith Eliza Anetta East 💍 1868/10327 John Smith Elizabeth Evans 💍 1868/9626	Bachelor Spinster	Mastmaker	29 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 2 weeks	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1961	22 June 1868	Registrar of Marriages

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).