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 241

District of Wellington 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
28	23 March 1869	Stephen Jagan Mary Ann Trotman	Stephen Fagan Mary Ann Trotman 💍 1869/5910	Widower Spinster	Bootmaker	53 22	Hutt Wellington	about 18 years about 7 years	Residence of Rev. W.M. Fell	559		23 March 1869	Rev. W.M. Fell & others
29	27 March 1869	Edward Fearon Burrill Emily Ellen Bowden	Edward Fearon Burrell Emily Ellen Bowden 💍 1869/6078	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 17	at present Wellington Upper Hutt	3 days 2 years	Church of England, Upper Hutt	614	Thomas Adolphus Bowden, father	27 March 1869	Rev. Han Desbois & others
30	27 March 1869	James Hooper Caroline Mann	James Hooper Caroline Mann 💍 1869/5913	Bachelor Spinster	Plasterer	48 36	Wellington Wellington	10 years 7 days	Residence of Mr John Brew	538		27 March 1869	Rev. W.M. Fell & others
31	27 March 1869	William Furniss Margaret Barker	William Furness Margaret Birket 💍 1869/5790 William Shanley Margaret Calder 💍 1869/7287 William Mullens Margaret Mahon 💍 1869/7017 William West Margaret Power 💍 1869/5490 William Sturrock Margaret Connor 💍 1869/8385 William Craig Margaret McPherson 💍 1869/4977 William Rankin Margaret Grant 💍 1869/7413 William Gregg Margaret Stevens 💍 1869/8703 William Adair Margaret Knox 💍 1869/5001 William Gerry Margaret McGill 💍 1869/5439 William Espie Margaret Reid 💍 1869/8751	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	22 17	Wellington Wellington	22 years 17 years	Residence of Mr Edward Hart	515	Edward Berkett, father	27 March 1869	Rev. R. Ward & others
32	30 March 1869	Jeremias Hoggard Peterkin Isabella Paar		Bachelor Spinster	Fellmonger	24 21	Taita Taita	16 months many years	Residence of Mr John Hirst	609		30 March 1869	Rev. W.S. McGowan & others
33	30 March 1869	Thomas John Drake Helen Russell Knox	Thomas John Drake Helen Russell Knox 💍 1869/5898	Bachelor Spinster	Grazier	28 25	Porirua Porirua	28 years many years	Residence of Rev. J.S. Muir	553		30 March 1869	Rev. J.S. Muir & others
34	30 March 1869	Thomas Perry Ann M. Mahon	Thomas Perry Ann McMahon 💍 1869/5829	Bachelor Spinster	Painter & Glazier	29 27	Wellington Wellington	5 months 8 months	Residence of Rev. William Risk	528

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).