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
245	18 December 1868	Alexander Megget Caroline Michel	Alexander Megget Caroline Michel 💍 1868/8840	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	25 20	Dunedin Dunedin	7 yrs 4 yrs	In the house of Frederick Michel, George Street, Dunedin	2063	Frederick Michel, Father	18 December 1868	Rev. J. M. Stuart
246	21 December 1868	Henry Hobson Sarah Mann	Henry Hobson Sarah Mann 💍 1868/10153	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	37 27	Dunedin Dunedin	6 days 1 week	In St. Paul's Church, Dunedin	1900		21 December 1868	Rev. E. G. Edwards
247	26 December 1868	William Fowles Downes Florence Annie Caste	William Fowles Downes Florence Annie Easte 💍 1868/8912	Bachelor Spinster	Bank Clerk	25 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 yrs	In the house of Mrs Bray, Pelichet Bay, Dunedin	2088		26 December 1868	Rev. I. Williams
248	28 December 1868	Timothy O'Leary Ann McElroy	Timothy Delehanty Ann McIlroy 💍 1868/10288	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	30 28	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 5 days	In St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin	1945		28 December 1868	Rev. D. Moreau
249	28 December 1868	John McGrath Esther Dunn	John McGrath Esther Dunne 💍 1868/10294 John McGrath Elizabeth Conlin 💍 1868/9359	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 weeks	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1947		28 December 1868	Rev. D. Moreau
250	28 December 1868	John Hughes Louise White	John Hughes Louisa White 💍 1868/10156	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	49 40	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 6 yrs	In St. Paul's Church, Dunedin	1901		28 December 1868	Rev. E. G. Edwards
251	28 December 1868	William Dunn Margaret Sinclair	William Dunn Margaret Sinclair 💍 1868/8843	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	35 28	Dunedin Dunedin	7 yrs 6 days	In Knox Church Dunedin	2064		28 December 1868	Rev. J. M. Stuart
252	28 December 1868	John O'Connor Catherine McCabe	John O'Connor Catherine McCabe 💍 1868/10291	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 20	Dunedin Dunedin	2 months 2 months	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1946	No person to give consent	28 December 1868	Rev. D. Moreau
253	28 December 1868	William Hope Miller Alice Marian Kingcombe	William Hope Miller Alice Marian Kingcombe 💍 1868/8972	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	26 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 6 yrs	In the house of Mr Kingcombe, Maclaggan Street Dunedin	2109		28 December 1868	Rev. R. Scrimgeour

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).