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

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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
236	28 November 1868	John Leonard Horsey Jessie Lily Bate	John Leonard Horsey Jessie Lily Cato 💍 1868/10207	Bachelor Spinster	Banker	34 20	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 2 yrs	All Saints Church, Dunedin	1918		28 November 1868	Rev. E. H. Grange
237	30 November 1868	Thomas Popham Mary Donovan	Thomas Popham Mary Donavon 💍 1868/10282	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin	1943		30 November 1868	Rev. C. Moreau
238	2 December 1868	Thomas Gray Janet Lunnam	Thomas Gray Janet Lunnam 💍 1868/8969	Bachelor Spinster	Bullock driver	30 28	Dunedin Caversham	1 week 5 yrs	Manse of the Rev. R. Serimgeour, Dunedin	2108		2 December 1868	Rev. R. Serimgeour
239	3 December 1868	John Craig Susannah Selina Warwick	John Craig Susanna Selina Warwick 💍 1868/10150	Widower Widow	Carpenter	39 38	West Taieri Dunedin	3 yrs 9 yrs	St. Paul's Church, West Taieri	1899		3 December 1868	Rev. E. G. Edwards
240	5 December 1868	Charles McAllister Ann Herd	Charles McAllister Ann Hard 💍 1868/10285	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin	1944		5 December 1868	Rev. C. Moreau
241	5 December 1868	Donald Sutherland Elizabeth Thomson	Donald Sutherland Elizabeth Thomson 💍 1868/8837	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 29	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 week	House of David Robertson, Richmond Hill	2062		5 December 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
242	7 December 1868	Peter Stott Mary Booth	Peter Stott Mary Booth 💍 1868/8834	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	33 21	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 3 yrs	Knox Church, Dunedin	2061		7 December 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
243	7 December 1868	William James Percival Annie Bradley	William Percival Annie Bradley 💍 1868/4389 Michael Manning Annie Bradley 💍 1868/10219	Bachelor Spinster	Draughtsman	23 19	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 10 yrs	All Saints Church, Dunedin	2336	James Bradley, Father	22 December 1868	Rev. E. H. Grange
244	16 December 1868	John Barter Margaret Thomson	John Carter Margaret Thomson 💍 1868/8897	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	25 20	Dunedin Green Island	5 yrs 3 yrs	House of Thomas Thomson, Green Island	2083	Thomas Thomson, Father	16 December 1868	Rev. M. Watt

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).