Intentions to Marry, 1860

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840372, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

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

Page 235

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31st of December 1860

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
68	26 November 1860	William Smith Margaret Scott Sampson	Wm Smith Margaret Scott Simpson 💍 1860/3140	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	22 23	Dunedin Dunedin	14 months 14 months	In my own House		1860	Donald M Stuart
69	3 December 1860	Charles McQuarrie Lefsy Turnbull	Charles McQuarrie Jessy Turnbull 💍 1860/3302	Bachelor Widow	Seaman	26 26	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 4 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages		3 December 1860	Registrar of Marriages
70	10 December 1860	George Grant Mary Dewar	George Grant Mary Dewar 💍 1860/3305	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	31 33	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 2 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages		10 December 1860	Registrar of Marriages
71	14 December 1860	Josiah Furtchen Martha Havers	Josiah Tutchen Martha Havers 💍 1860/3149	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	29 26	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 2 months	In the House of William Havers, Gardner near Dunedin		14 December 1860	D M Stuart
72	17 December 1860	Thomas Anderson Janet Whitick	Thomas Anderson Janet Whitick 💍 1860/3093	Bachelor Spinster	Ship Carpenter	31 23	Upper Harbour east side Port Chalmers	2 years 1 year	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin		17 December 1860	Edward G Edwards
73	21 December 1860	Benjamin Farrow Elizabeth Lind	Benjamin Farrow Elisabeth Lind 💍 1860/3146	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	21 19	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 3 years	In the House of Samuel Lind, Carter, commongate Dunedin	Samuel Lind, Father of Minor	21 December 1860	D. M. Stuart
74	21 December 1860	Robert Stirling Helen Robins	Robert Stirling Helen Robin 💍 1860/3143	Bachelor Spinster	Master	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 1 year	In Robert Stirlings House, Rattray Street Dunedin		21 December 1860	D. M. Stuart
75	27 December 1860	Isaac Augustus Avarne Martha Goddard	[No matching marriage registration has been located]	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	30 27	Dunedin Port Chalmers	3 years 3 days	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin		27 December 1860	Edward G. Edwards

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).