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 227

District of Wanganui 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	Officiating Minister
38	8 October 1869	Thomas Fellingham Elizabeth Aitken	Thomas Gill Elizabeth Doyle 💍 1869/5664	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	30 17	Wanganui Wanganui	4 years 3 years	Catholic Church, Guyton St	496	William Aitken, father	22 Oct	Rev. John Campbell
39	20 October 1869	James William Buckle Elinor Mary Wellington	James William Durie Elinor Mary Kilgour 💍 1869/5907	Bachelor		31 28		10 years 2 years	Private Residence of Ella Halke	451		Oct 22	Rev. J. Williams
40	21 October 1869	Duncan McLean Annie Smith	Duncan McGregor Annie Norah Smith 💍 1869/5649	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 23		1 year 6 months	Private Residence	444		Oct. 26	Rev. D. Hogg
41	26 October 1869	George Tuffin Catherine Murray	George Tuffin Catherine Murray 💍 1869/5652 George Thackeray Catherine Murray 💍 1869/4794	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer	33 25		1 year 9 months	Private Residence	465		Nov. 1
42	2 December 1869	Lars Hansen Elizabeth King	Thomas Hamilton Elizabeth King 💍 1869/5619	Bachelor Spinster	Market Gardener	26 18		2 years 6 months	Wesleyan Church	453	James King, Father	Dec. 6	Rev. W. Morley
43	4 December 1869	Edward Stuart Sarah Fudge	Edward Hunt Sarah Fudge Vincent 💍 1869/5622	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	20 21		1 year 7 months	Residence of Mr. Vincent	454		Dec. 9	Rev. W. Morley
44	6 December 1869	Percy Bannister Mary Ann March		Bachelor Spinster	Builder	25 21		3 years 3 months	Private residence of Mr. Wilson	447		Dec. 9	Rev. W. Morley
45	7 December 1869	Samuel Chaplin Jane Kells	Samuel Taplin Jane Kells 💍 1869/5625	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	26 19		11 months 1 year	Private Residence of Capt Kells	455		Dec. 7	Rev. W. Morley
46	2 December 1869	Charles Aitken Sarah Ann Wellesley Freeman		Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	23 19		1 year	Catholic Church, Wanganui	440	Edmund Freeman, Father	Dec. 6	Rev. Jas. Simms
47	21 December 1869	Thomas Frame Marian Avant		Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	33 22	Wanganui Wanganui	5 years	Church, Wanganui	439		Dec. 21	Rev. J. Campbell
48	21 December 1869											Dec. 21	Rev. C.H. Nicholls

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).