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 728

District of Invercargill Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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	16 July 1869	Daniel Walker Mary Bone	Daniel Walker Mary Bone 💍 1869/9429	Widower Widow	Miner	36 35	Invercargill Invercargill	2 days 2 days	In the English Church at Invercargill	1790		19 July 1869	Mr. J. Skinner
152	23 July 1869	Peter Brown Ellen Power	Peter Brown Ellen Power 💍 1869/9522 Richard Fleming Ellen Power 💍 1869/7803	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Domestic Servant	29 25	Invercargill Invercargill	8 years 1 year	In the house of Robert Reid in Don Street Invercargill	1801		23 July 1869	A. H. Stobo
153	27 July 1869	William Cubbin Agnes Brown Deacon	William Cubbin Agnes Brown Deacon 💍 1869/9432	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	36 34	Hokamii Invercargill	7 years 3 years	In the English Church at Invercargill	1771		27 July 1869	Mr. P. Jammes
154	31 July 1869	Walter Burnet Elizabeth Gifford	Walter Burnett Elizabeth Gifford 💍 1869/9525	Widower Widow	Storeman Housekeeper	40 48	Invercargill Invercargill	12 months 5 years	In the house of Walker Burnet Esq Invercargill	1802		31 July 1869	A. H. Stobo
155	5 August 1869	David Poter Mary Baker	David Peter Mary Baxter 💍 1869/9528	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 33	Waikiwi Invercargill	5 years 6 days	In the Albion Hotel in Dee Street Invercargill	1803		5 August 1869	A. H. Stobo
156	6 September 1869	John Young Elizabeth Allen	John Young Elizabeth Allen 💍 1869/3899	Bachelor Spinster	Lawyer Domestic Servant	26 20	Appleby Appleby	9 years 6 months	In the house of James Allen at Appleby.	1804	James Allen, father	6 September 1869	A. H. Stobo
157	7 September 1869	Andrew Mailer Jessie Sinclair	Arthur Mailer Jessie Sinclair 💍 1869/9450	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	47 29	Wallacetown Wallacetown	2 years 2 days	In the Manse at Wallacetown	1777		17 September 1869	A. Stevens
158	18 September 1869	James Morris Johanna Gunn	James Morris Johanna Gunn 💍 1869/9531	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	43 41	Seaward Bush Invercargill	9 years 12 months	In the house of Miss Gunn in Leet Street Invercargill	1805		18 September 1869	A. H. Stobo
159	28 September 1869	Donald McLean Christina Brown	Donald McIntosh Christina Brown McDonald 💍 1869/9465	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	28 18	Invercargill Invercargill	1 day 1 day	In the house of William McKay in Tay Street Invercargill	1782		30 September 1869	R. J. 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).