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 724

District of Invercargill 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
1766	4 January 1869	James McIntosh Catherine Wilson Lauder	James McIntosh Catherine Wilson Lander 💍 1869/9417 Allan McIntosh Catherine Williams 💍 1869/9183	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	32 21	Invercargill Invercargill	1 year 9 months	In the English church at Invercargill	1766		4 January 1869	N.P. Jamnes
1767	5 January 1869	Edward Hart Warren Elizabeth Amelia Feaver Macloskey	Edward Hart Warren Elizabeth Amelia Fraser Macloskey 💍 1869/9420	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 25	New River Invercargill	1 year 1 year	In the English Church at Invercargill	1767		5 January 1869	N. P. Jamnes
1768	15 February 1869	George Story Margaret Riddell	George Story Margaret Riddell 💍 1869/9423	Widower Spinster	Farmer	38 21	New River New River	8 years 6 years	In the English Church at Invercargill	1768		15 February 1869	N.P. Jamnes
1769	18 February 1869	Archibald McBride Margaret Milne		Bachelor Spinster	Farm Servant	27 22	Long Bush Invercargill	5 years 3 years	In the Presbyterian Church at Invercargill	1769		18 February 1869	A. H. Stobo
1773	16 January 1869	Andrew Macdonald Christina McLeod	Andrew Macdonald Christina McLeod 💍 1869/9438	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster	35 19	Invercargill Mabel Bush	6 years 5 years	In the house of John McDonals at Mabel Bush	1773	Donald McLeod, Father	16 January 1869	A. Stevens
1796	21 January 1869	John Finlayson Helen Finlayson	John Finlayson Helen Finlayson 💍 1869/9507	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	34 27	Invercargill Waikivi	5 years 8 years	In the house of Kenneth Finlayson at Waikivi	1796		21 January 1869	A. H. Stobo
1797	13 February 1869	Donald Robertson Catherine Robertson	Donald Robertson Catherine Robertson 💍 1869/9510	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	35 31	Hokamii Invercargill	5 years 2 months	In the house of James Robertson Surgery Street	1797		13 February 1869	a. H. Stobo
1798	19 February 1869	John Clark Mary Ann McDougall	John Clark Mary Ann McDougall 💍 1869/9513	Bachelor Widow	Sawyer	45 34	Invercargill Invercargill	6 years 6 years	In the house of Robert Meldrum in Spy street Invercargill	1798		19 February 1869	a. H. Stobo
1799	19 February 1869	Thomas Surman Mary Froggah	Thomas Surman Mary Froggatt 💍 1869/9456	Bachelor Spinster	Malster	27 19	Invercargill Invercargill	2 months 4 years	In the house of Robert S. Bunn in Esk street Invercargill	1799		19 February 1869	R. S. Bunn

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).