Intentions to Marry, 1859

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840371, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 12 2024

Page 197

District of Otago Quarter ending 31 March 1859

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
49	24 December 1858	James Sim Jane Cameron	James Sim Jane Cameron 💍 1859/1541	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	31 26	North-east Valley do	10 years 6 months	At the Ferry		11 January 1859	The Rev. John Mcnicol Waikola
50	1 January 1859	Joseph Ramton Jane Brinton	Joseph Rainton Jane Bruton 💍 1859/1560	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	24 22	Dunedin do	1 year 1 year	the English Church		1 January 1859	Rev. Arthur Monte Wyatt, Dunedin
51	1 January 1859	Freeman Rayney Jackson Anna Shea Lawlor	Freeman Rayney Jackson Anna E A Shea Lawlor 💍 1859/1512	Bachelor Spinster	Stockowner	20 17	Jacobs River Jacobs River	3 years 1 year	At the residence of Daniel Shea Lawlor, Riverton	Daniel Shea Lawlor, brother of the minor Anna Shea Lawlor	14 January 1859	Rev. William Bannerman Clutha
52	3 January 1859	William Chapman Marion Taylor	William Chapman Marion Taylor Docherty 💍 1859/1536	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	25 21	Dunedin do	4 months 10 months	At the residence of William Blackie East Taieri		3 January 1859	Rev. William Will East Taieri
53	14 January 1859	John Maxwell Mary Park	John Maxwell Mary Park 💍 1859/1521	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 21	Port Chalmers do	8 months 8 months	At the residence of the male party Port Chalmers		14 January 1859	Rev. William Johnston Port Chalmers
54	20 January 1859	John Donble Jane Inglis	John Double Jane Inglis 💍 1859/1565	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	27 24	Anderson's Bay do	5 years 1 year	At the Office of the Registrar Dunedin		20 January 1859	Robert Chapman Registrar
55	26 January 1859	John Wilson Helen Mathie	John Wilson Helen Mathie 💍 1859/1554	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	28 20	Dunedin do	2 years 14 months	At the residence of Wm T Leak Dunedin	Alexander Matheson, father of the minor	10 February 1859	Rev. Thomas Burns Dunedin
56	29 January 1859	Matthew Gardner Scott Janet Marr	Matthew Gardiner Scott Janet Marr 💍 1859/1545	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	20 22	Dunedin do	1 year 1 year	At the residence of David Robertson Garden, [UNCLEAR]		29 January 1859	Rev. John Mcnicol Waikola
57		William Harrold Christina Harrold	William Harrold Christina Harold 💍 1859/1491	Bachelor Spinster	Boatman	27 35	Taieri Ferry do	15 months 15 months	At the Ferry			Rev. Arthur Monte Wyatt
58	31 January 1859	Abraham Watson Marion Young Millar	Abraham Watson Marion Young Millar 💍 1859/1562	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	23 17	Invercargill Dunedin	2 years 3 years	At the English Church	David Millar, father of the minor		Dunedin
59	2 February 1859	Edward Houghton Mary Grace Elliot	Edward Houghton Mary Grace Elliot 💍 1859/1515	Bachelor Spinster	Auctioneer	30 26	Waikati Dunedin	9 months 9 months	At the English Church Dunedin		2 February 1859	Rev. Arthur Monte Wyatt Dunedin

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).