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 640

District of Tokomairiro 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
189	8 January 1869	James Duggan Ann Roach		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	30 21	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	1 year 18 months	Roman Catholic Chapel	1612	8 January 1869	Joseph M. Brown
190	12 February 1869	James Sheddan Jane Bruce	James Sheddan Jessie Bruce 💍 1869/9363	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 22	The Gorge Tokomairiro	1 year 1 year	In the house of Mr Hector Bruce, Waitahuna	1748	12 February 1869	James Copeland M.D.
191	13 February 1869	John Bradbury Jessie Noble	John Bradbury Jessie Noble 💍 1869/8961	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 21	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	2 years 11 years	In the house of John Noble	1607	13 February 1869	John M. Allan
192	15 February 1869	James McLean Bridget Sergius	James McLean Bridget McTigue 💍 1869/8979	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	26 22	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	5 years 3 years	Roman Catholic Chapel	1613	15 February 1869	Joseph M. Brown
193	3 March 1869	John Irving Jenny Inches	John Irving Fanny Murch 💍 1869/8988	Bachelor Widow	Toll Collector	34 38	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	14 months 3 Days	St John's Church	1616	3 March 1869	R. L. Stanford
194	8 March 1869	Adam Johnstone Margaret Forsyth	Adam Johnston Margaret Forsyth 💍 1869/8964	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	30 26	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	3 Days 6 months	In the house of Robert Forsyth	1608	8 March 1869	John M. Allan
195	13 March 1869	Charley Fredrick A. B. Margaret Young	Charles Frederick A Thomson Margaret Young 💍 1869/8166	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	25 21	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	6 months 5 years	In the house of G. Young	1331	13 March 1869	A. B. Todd
196	19 March 1869	James Graham Isabella Brown	James Graham Susannah Brown 💍 1869/8940	Bachelor Widow	Schoolmaster	39 34	Tokomairiro Tokomairiro	3 years 1 year	In the house of Rev. A. B. Todd	1600	19 March 1869	A. B. Todd

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).