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 571

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
171	9 September 1868	William Stewart Janet Brown	William Stewart Janet Brown 💍 1868/10339 William Weeks Hannah Brown 💍 1868/4898 William Wallace Margaret Brown 💍 1868/6281	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	21 17	Dunedin Dunedin	9 mos 17 mos	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1905	James Brown, Father	9 September 1868	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
172	10 September 1868	William Mcdougall Sarah Reid	William McDougall Sarah Reid 💍 1868/10516	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	31 17	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church	2027	William Reid, Father	10 September 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
173	10 September 1868	Miguel Paschal Garcia Mary Jane Amy	Miguel Paschal Garcia Mary Jane Amy 💍 1868/8738	Bachelor Spinster	Book Keeper	33 27	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 5 yrs	In Knox Church	2029		10 September 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
174	11 September 1868	Daniel Millward Harriet Horace Doughty	Daniel Millward Harriet Hurace Doughty 💍 1868/8741	Widower Spinster	Farmer	49 41	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church	2030		11 September 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
175	14 September 1868	William Carpenter Mary Jane Anderson	William Carpenter Mary Jane Anderson 💍 1868/8744 William Hinton Mary Ann Anderson 💍 1868/7604 William Ritchie Margaret Anderson 💍 1868/9482	Bachelor Widow	Ploughman	35 29	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church	2031		14 September 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
176	14 September 1868	James Hamilton Kate Ross	James Famelton Kate Ross 💍 1868/8747	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	28 21	Dunedin Dunedin	5 days 21 yrs	In the house of Ronald Ross, York Place, Dunedin	2032		14 September 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
177	16 September 1868	John Melville Catherine Macfarlane	John Melville Catherine McFarlane 💍 1868/10081	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 1 year	In the house of John Melville, Maitland Street Dunedin	1873		16 September 1868	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
178	16 September 1868	Robert Will Susan Adams Hunter	Robert Neill Susan Adams Hunter 💍 1868/10075	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 year	In the house of Mr Blendinning, London Street, Dunedin	1871		16 September 1868	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
179	17 September 1868	Hector Munro Jane Murray	Hector Munro Jane Murray 💍 1868/10078	Bachelor Spinster	Stone-mason	26 22	Dunedin Dunedin	7 days 7 days	In the Manse of the Rev. Thomas Burns D.D., Dunedin	1872		17 September 1868	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.

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).