1857 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840369, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 13 2024

Page 134

District of Otago Quarter ending 30 June 1857

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
10	25 March 1857	Charles Todd Margaret Shand	Charles Todd Margaret Shand 💍 1857/1832	Bachelor Spinster	Agriculturist	28 28	East Taieri do	5 Years 4 Years	In the house of Wm Shand East Taieri	8 April 1857	Rev. William Will East Taieri
11	31 March 1857	Frederick Henry Watts Annie Caroline Blatch	Frederick Henry Watts Ann Caroline Blatch 💍 1857/1866	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 20	Caversham Do	3 Years 9 Years	In the House of Henry Frederick Blatch at Caversham	April 13	Reverend John Albert Fenton Dunedin
12	6 April 1857	Daniel Weir Alison Bower	Daniel Weir Alison Bower 💍 1857/1930	Widower Widow	Agriculturist	36 36	Andersons Bay Dunedin	8 Years 5 Months	At the Residence of Mr. Bower Dunedin	April 20	Rev. Thomas Burns Dunedin
13	13 April 1857	James Harker Wilson Ann Borrie	James Harker Wilson Anne Barrie 💍 1857/1835	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	26 19	Waipori West Taieri	5 Years 5 Years	In the house of Wm Borrie West Taieri	April [UNCLEAR]	Rev. William Will East Taieri
14	15 April 1857	William Shand Ann Webster Christie	William Shand Anne Webster Christie 💍 1857/1838	Bachelor Spinster	Agriculturist	25 21	East Taieri Saddle Hill	5 Years 3 Years	In the house of James Christie Saddle Hill	April 22	Rev. William Will East Taieri
15	30 April 1857	Matthew Marshall Julia Brodie Bowers	Matthew Marshall Julia Brodie Bower 💍 1857/1876	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	24 19	South Tokomairiro Dunedin	9 Years 7 Years	In the house of David Bowers Andersons Bay	May 14	Rev. Thomas Burns Dunedin
16	30 April 1857	William Smith Margaret Smith	William Smith Margaret Smith 💍 1857/1873	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	42 30	North East Valley Waikari	7 Years 7 Years	In the residence of James Smith Waikari	May 14	Rev. Thomas Burns Dunedin
17	15 June 1857	Frank Pellett Matilda Lambert	Frank Pellett Matilda Lampert 💍 1857/1879	Widower Spinster	Carpenter	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	8 Months 8 Months	At the residence of Mrs. Pellett Bay, Dunedin	June 27	Rev. Thomas Burns Dunedin
18	23 May 1857	James Sizemore Sarah Thomson	James Sizemore Sarah Thomson 💍 1857/1851	Bachelor Spinster	Stock Keeper	19 21	Waikouaiti Brim Point	10 Years 5 Years	At the house of Richard Sizemore Hawksbury Bush	May 23	Rev. William Kirke Waikouaiti

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).