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 204

District of Otago Quarter ending 30th of September 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
52	1859 August 12	Robert Bell Ann Sinclair	Robert Bell Ann Sinclair 💍 1859/1605	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	36 22	Waihola Waihola	4 years 2 years	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin		1859 August 14	Revd Edward George Edwards, Dunedin
53	August 6th 1859	William Adam Strachan Elizabeth Kidd	William Adam Strachan Elizabeth Kidd 💍 1859/1646	Bachelor Spinster	Brewer	28 20	Sampson's Bay Dunedin	2 years 2 days	At the residence of William Thomson Dunedin	No one in the Colony capable of giving consent	August 6th 1859	Revd Thomas Burns Dunedin
54	August 9th 1859	Robert Seth Bagg Helen Sinsay Christie	Robert Leith Begg Helen Lindsay Christie 💍 1859/1602	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	30 18	Dunedin Saddle Hill	2 years 5 years	At the residence of James Christie Saddle Hill	James Christie Saddle Hill, father of the Minor	August 9th 1859	Revd William Will East Taieri
55	September 2nd 1859	John Daley Jessie Henderson	John Daly Jessie Henderson 💍 1859/1599	Bachelor Spinster	Horsebreaker	33 30	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 18 months	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin		19 September 1859	Revd Edward George Edwards, Dunedin
56	9 September 1859	William McTaggart Helen Hay	William McTagget Helen Hay 💍 1859/1634	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	25 22	Dunedin Dunedin	16 months 16 months	At the residence of the male party Stafford Street Dunedin		September 9th 1859	Revd Thomas Burns Dunedin
57	17 September 1859	John Hagie Helen Queen	John Haigie Helen Queen 💍 1859/1649	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	21 22	Waitaki Waitaki	1 year 6 months	At the Episcopal Church Dunedin		19 September 1859	Revd Edward George Edwards, Dunedin
58	19 September 1859	John Kruger Maria Potoesla	John Kruger Marie Potesta 💍 1859/1652	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	32 19	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 3 days	At the Episcopal Church Dunedin		19 September 1859	Revd Edward George Edwards, Dunedin
59			Certificate not issued
60			Certificate not issued
61			Certificate not issued

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).