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 726

District of Invercargill Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
151	9 April 1869	John Gray Jane Campbell	John Gray Jane Campbell 💍 1869/9519 John Urquhart Ann Campbell 💍 1869/5016 John Scott Agnes Campbell 💍 1869/4929	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 26	Mataura Invercargill	6 years 3 days	In the house of James Gray in Spey street Invercargill	1800		9 April 1869	A. H. Stobo
152	12 April 1869	James Kirtland Agnes Law Walker		Bachelor Spinster	Farm Servant Domestic Servant	31 22	Minton Minton	5 years 6 months	In the house of James Kirtland Sylvan Bank			12 April 1869	A. H. Stobo
153	17 April 1869	Joseph Butler Agnes Young	Joseph Butter Agnes Young 💍 1869/9474	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman Servant	33 18	Ryal Bush Ryal Bush	18 months 4 years	In the house of Robert Young Mabel Bush	1785	Robert Young, Father	17 April 1869	J. Alexander
154	11 May 1869	William Blackstock Margaret Cockburn	William Blackstock Margaret Cockburn 💍 1869/9444	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	32 23	Aparima New River	3 months 5 years	In the house of John Cockburn New River	1795		11 May 1869	A. Stevens
155	18 May 1869	John Birss Fanny Shaw	John Birss Fanny Shaw 💍 1869/9486	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	31 21	Oteramika Oteramika	6 years 6 months	In the office of the Registrar Invercargill	1789		18 May 1869	John Hare, Registrar
156	18 May 1869	Archibald McKay Jessie McIntosh	Archibald McKay Jessie McIntosh 💍 1869/9462	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 22	Forest Hill Forest Hill	1 year 3 months	In the house of William McKay in Tay street Invercargill	1781		18 May 1869	R. S. Bunn
157	29 May 1869	James Deegan Bridget Murphy	James Deegan Bridget Murphy 💍 1869/9495	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 23	Ryal Bush Ryal Bush	6 years 6 months	In the Roman Catholic Church Invercargill	1792		29 May 1869	H. Belliard
158	29 May 1869	John Boyle Ann Kavany	John Boyle Ann Kavany 💍 1869/9492	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	33 24	Invercargill Invercargill	6 years 5 years	In the Roman Catholic Church Invercargill	1791		29 May 1869	H. Belliard
159	2 June 1869	James Fraser Ann McConachie	James Fraser Ann McConochie 💍 1869/9447	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 26	Forest Hill Forest Hill	4 1/2 years 5 years	In the house of Donald McConachie at Forest Hill	1796		2 June 1869	A. Stevenson

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).