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 221

District of Wanganui Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
1	15 January 1869	Geo. M. Donald Sarah Hammond		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Nogg's Employee	34 31	Wanganui do	4 years 4 years	Residence			14 January 1869	Rev. David Nogg
2	15 January 1869	Owen Ryan Joannah Scannell	Simon Ryan Johanna Scannell 💍 1869/5655	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	30 25	do. do.	7 years 6 Months	Catholic Chapel Wanganui	466		15 January 1869	Rev. John Kempilla
3	16 January 1869	James Christie Annie Nichols	James White Annie Nicholson 💍 1869/5628	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 24	do. do.	3 1/2 years 10 days	Residence of Ann Blyth, Mary Street, Wanganui	456		16 January 1869	Rev. David Hogs
4	21 January 1869	Wiremu a Brown Wiki Kemp		Bachelor Spinster	Native	19 19	Rangitikei Wanganui	19 years 19 years	Church, Puriri, Rangitikei, Manawa		Basil Taylor, Father	21 January 1869	Rev. Basil Taylor
5	27 January 1869	Robert Brown Anne Corlie	Robert Brown Ann Carlis 💍 1869/5658	Bachelor Spinster	Shoe Maker	27 22	do do.	12 months 18 months	Catholic Chapel, Operirihanna, Wanganui	447		27 January 1869	Rev. John Lampilla
6	27 January 1869	Ellis Gordon Martha Stannard	Thomas Gordon Martha Stannard 💍 1869/5607	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	25 24	do do.	3 years 5 years	Residence of Rev. Stannard, Wanganui	449		27 January 1869	Rev. Geo. Stannard
7	15 February 1869	John Danguard Helen Doughty	John Aagaard Helen Doughty 💍 1869/5706	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 18	Rangitikei do.	18 years 18 years	Private Residence of Mr. Doughty, Rangitikei	485	John Doughty, Father	15 February 1869	Rev. Humming
8	22 February 1869	Archibald Mitchell Francis Price		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 19	Wanganui	24 years 12 years	Residence of Geo. Ross, Wapepe Valley, Wanganui		Thomas Price, Guardian	22 February 1869	Rev. Geo. Stannard
9	4 March 1869	James Currie Eliza Kerr Moore	James Currie Eliza Kerr Moore 💍 1869/5586	Bachelor Spinster	Shop Keeper	30 29		3 years 4 years	Residence of James Wilson, Ridgway Street, Wanganui	442		4 March 1869	Rev. J. Wilson

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).