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 721

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
431	8 July 1868	William Tulloch Goodsir Ann Elizabeth Smith	William Tulloch Goodsir Ann Elizabeth Smith 💍 1868/9584	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 19	Invercargill Invercargill	6 months 9 years	In the English Church at Invercargill	2316	John Smith, Father	8 July 1868	N. P. Fanner
432	17 July 1868	William Calder Agnes Graham	William Calder Agnes Graham 💍 1868/9572	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 18	Riverton Invercargill	4 years 4 years	In the house of William Graham, Oak Street, Invercargill	2312	William Graham, Father	17 July 1868	A. H. Stobo
433	22 July 1868	David McKenzie Margaret Stevens	David McKenzie Margaret Stevens 💍 1868/9431	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Servant Servant	23 24	Hokamii Hokamii	5 years 6 months	In the house of J. R. Davies, Hokamii	2265		22 July 1868	J. Alexander
434	27 July 1868	John Caulfield Margaret Cavanagh	John Caulfield Margaret Kavanagh 💍 1868/5012	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	26 24	Invercargill Roslin Bush	4 years 3 years	In the Roman Catholic Church Invercargill			27 July 1868	A. Belliard
435	31 July 1868	Jacob OH Friedrike Grimminger		Bachelor Spinster	Dealer	35 23	Invercargill Waikiwi	14 years 6 weeks	In the house of C. H. Hormann, Waikiwi	2338		31 July 1868	A. H. Stobo
436	6 August 1868	Andrew Toshack Margaret McNaughton	Andrew Tosbach Margaret McNaughton 💍 1868/9527	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	39 24	Waikiwi Waikiwi	8 years 6 years	In the house of Mary McNaughton, Waikiwi	2298		6 August 1868	A. Stevens
437	9 August 1868	Duncan Salmond Annie Louisa Davies	Duncan Salmond Annie Louisa Davies 💍 1868/5003	Bachelor Spinster	Stockowner	23 23	Hokamii Hokamii	6 years 2 years	In the house of J. R. Davies Hokamii	2289		9 August 1868	W. P. Fanner
438	21 August 1868	Thomas Robson Mary Jane Ripper	Thomas Robson Mary Jane Ripper 💍 1868/9494	Widower Spinster	Tailor Servant	40 30	Invercargill Invercargill	10 months 4 years	In the house of Mrs Lockhart in Dee Street Invercargill	2287		21 August 1868	R. S. Bunn
439	31 August 1868	Thomas Millar Mary Hynes	Thomas Millar Mary Hymes 💍 1868/9497	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	27 22	Invercargill Invercargill	5 years 5 years	In the house of William Preston Waikiwi	2288		31 August 1868	R. J. Bunn

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).