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 260

District of Wellington 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
119	21 October 1869	George King Mary Coughlin	George King Mary Coghlin 💍 1869/5772	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	33 23	Wellington Wellington	18 months 16 months	St. Peter's Church, Te Aro	508		21 October 1869	Rev. Arthur Stock
120	29 October 1869	John William Bryant Emma Bogle	John William Bryant Emma Eagle 💍 1869/5922	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 18	Ohariu Karori	3 years 4 years	Residence of the Rev. W.M. Fell, Webb Street	561	Robert Bogle, Father	13 November 1869	Rev. W. M. Fell
121	29 October 1869	Alfred Booth Mary Ann Bryant	Alfred Booth Mary Ann Bryant 💍 1869/5925	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 20	Ohariu Tawa Valley	6 years 8 years	Residence of the Rev. W. M. Fell, Webb Street	562	James Bryant, Father	13 November 1869	Rev. W. M. Fell
122	6 November 1869	Maurice Mulcahy Jane Donovan	Maurice Mulcahy Jane Donovan 💍 1869/6039	Bachelor Spinster	Overseer of Cattle Station	26 24	Wellington Wellington	8 days 12 months	St. Mary's Cathedral, Thorndon	601		6 November 1869	Rev. J. B. Petit
123	10 November 1869	Theophilus Easton Rebecca Elizabeth Coley	Theophilus Easton Rebecca Elizabeth Coly 💍 1869/5988	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 18	Wellington Wellington	4 years 5 years	St. Paul's Cathedral, Thorndon	584	James Coley, Father	10 November 1869	Rev. W. H. Buale
124	15 November 1869	Edward Horatio de Courcy Martelli Henrietta Priscilla Holland	Edward Horatio De Courcy Martelli Henrietta Priscilla Holland 💍 1869/4041	Bachelor Widow	Commission Agent	28 26	Wellington Te Aro	3 days 4 weeks	St. Peter's Church, Te Aro	509		15 November 1869	Rev. Arthur Stock
125	19 November 1869	Henry Gould Sarah Amram	Henry Gould Sarah Anereau 💍 1869/3995	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	27 22	Wellington Wellington	3 days 3 days	Residence of the Rev. John Moir, Woolcombe Street	578		19 November 1869	Rev. John Moir

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).