Intentions to Marry, 1869

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840381, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 180

District of Shortland Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
56	5 November 1869	James Delaney Fletcher Maria Butler	James Butement Maria Butler 💍 1869/5442	Bachelor Spinster	Saddle Maker Actress	29 27	Shortland Shortland	10 years beyond 6 months	dwelling house Shortland	389		5 November 1869
57	17 November 1869	Robert George Robinson Edith Lettley		Bachelor Spinster	Miner	28 18	Tararu Creek Tararu Creek	18 Months 12 Months	dwelling house Tararu Creek	346	Frederick Lettley (Father)	17 November 1869
58	24 November 1869	James Thomas Bedford Mary Ann Shell	James Thomas Bedford Mary Steel 💍 1869/5358	Widower Widow	Blacksmith	32 35	Graham's Town Graham's Town	3 Months 6 days	Near James Wice Shortland	365		24 November 1869
59	26 November 1869	William Henry Jenner Hannah Middleton	William Henry Newman Hannah Lyons Wilkinson 💍 1869/5307	Widower Widow	Theatrical Actress	31 27	Shortland Shortland	12 Months 12 Months	Registrar's office Shortland	364		26 November 1869
60	29 November 1869	William Raine Suss Ellen Brown	William Rowe Ellen Brown 💍 1869/5364	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	31 20	Karaka Creek Karaka Creek	12 Months 12 Months	Church Shortland	362	Thomas Brown (Father)	29 November 1869
61	22 November 1869	Thomas Jackson Nancy Rusden	Thomas Jackson Nancy Rusden 💍 1869/5319	Bachelor Spinster	Ship Smith	32 22	Shortland Shortland	3 years 2 years	Shortland	340		22 November 1869
62	29 November 1869	John Ratcliffe Mary Miller	John Ratclaffe Mary Miller 💍 1869/5361	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	27 18	Moanataiari Creek Moanataiari Creek	3 Months 3 Months	Church Shortland	361		29 November 1869
63	7 December 1869	William Jenkins Sarah Charles	William Jenkins Agnes Sarah Clarke 💍 1869/5373	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	28 21	Shortland Shortland	18 Months 6 Months	dwelling house occupied by William Jenkins Shortland	363		7 December 1869

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).