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 716

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
401	6 February 1868	Andrew Smith Marion Corbett	Andrew Smith Marion Corbet 💍 1868/9545	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	28 18	Appleby Appleby	4 years 5 years	In the house of William Corbett at Appleby	2303	William Corbett, Father	6 February 1868	A. H. Stobo
402	18 February 1868	John Kirwan Hanorah Murphy	John Kirwan Honorah Murphy 💍 1868/9446	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	25 21	Invercargill Invercargill	4 years 4 years	In the Roman Catholic Church at Invercargill	2271		18 February 1868	H. Bellia
403	18 February 1868	James Pierpoint Annie Gregg Ewing	James Pierpoint Annie Gregg Ewing 💍 1868/9485	Widower Spinster	Constable of Police	37 31	Invercargill Invercargill	18 months 3 months	In the house of Robert Borne in Esk St Invercargill	2284		18 February 1868	A. H. Stobo
404	19 February 1868	Angus McDonald Cameron Mary McSumphe	Angus McDonald Cameron Mary McIntyre 💍 1868/9443	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper	40 22	Invercargill Invercargill	7 years 3 years	In the house of John McSumphe Esq Invercargill	2270		19 February 1868	P. A. Martin
405	22 February 1868	Hector McKinnon Helen Noble	Hector McKinnon Helen Noble 💍 1868/9548	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 20	Invercargill Waianiva	3 years 2 years	In the house of James Robertson Waianiva	2304		22 February 1868	A. H. Stobo
406	25 February 1868	Martin Staypool Sarah Harper	Martin Stagpool Sarah Harper 💍 1868/9452	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	28 21	Invercargill Invercargill	2 months 14 months	In the Roman Catholic Church Invercargill	2273		25 February 1868	P. A. Martin
407	26 February 1868	Robert Birrell Mary Mann	Robert Birrell Mary Mann 💍 1868/9551	Bachelor Widow	Gardener Nurse	40 43	Gladstone Invercargill	5 years 5 years	In the house of George Gourlay in Esk Street Invercargill	2305		26 February 1868	A. H. Stobo
408	28 February 1868	Thomas Dyke Mary McQuillan	Thomas Dyke Mary McQuillan 💍 1868/9449	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	20 25	Invercargill Riverton	2 days 4 years	In the Roman Catholic Church Invercargill	2272	Thomas Dyke, Father	29 February 1868	H. Bellia

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).