Intentions to Marry, 1886

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840398, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 14 2025

Page 1070

District of Port Chalmers Quarter ending 30 September 1886

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
13	1 July 1886	Alexander Keele Williamina Keziah	Alexander Lack Williamina Couper 💍 1886/3383	Widower Spinster	Restaurant Keeper Domestic Servant	45 29	Port Chalmers Oamaru	24 years 3 days	House of Wm McGregor, Oamaru	86/3421		1 July 1886	Rev. Jul. Macgregor, Presbyterian
14	3 July 1886	George Horton Sarah Basire	George Horton Sarah Basire 💍 1886/2484	Widower Spinster	Restaurant Keeper Nil	45 25	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	7 days 25 years	House of H. S. Basire	86/2442		3 July 1886	Rev. Jno. Fee, Wesleyan
15	9 July 1886	Edward Retus Roseann Brown		Bachelor Spinster	Gaol Warder Nil	26 21	North Heads Port Chalmers	15 months 21 years	House of H. Brown	86/2443	Deborah Pray	9 July 1886	Rev. W. Burke, Catholic
16	13 August 1886	Oliver Andrew Bootten Mary Jane Bootten	Oliver Andrews Mary Jane Bootten 💍 1886/2463	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Nil	22 19	Sawyers Bay Sawyers Bay	2 years 19 years	House of Jas. Bootten	86/2444	Jas. Bootten, Father	13 August 1886	Rev. W. M. Grant, Congregational
17	13 August 1886	George Huinin Jane Willeine	George Skinner Jane Wilkins 💍 1886/2483 George Skinner Jane Wilkins 💍 1886/2482	Bachelor Spinster	Electric Engineer Nil	24 23	Port Chalmers Wicksliff Terrace, Port Chalmers	3 days 7 months	English Church	86/2441		13 August 1886	Rev. Jno. Johnston, Church of England

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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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).