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 114

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 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
27	16 May 1860	William Ryan Margaret Whitterly	William Ryen Margaret Whittock 💍 1860/3287	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	23 20	Sawyers bay Port Chalmers	11 months 7 months	In the office of the Registrar	David Whitterly, Father	May 17	John Gillies Registrar
28	17 May 1860	Edward Willies Briscoe Allison McKay	Edward Villiers Briscoe Alison McKay 💍 1860/3201	Bachelor Spinster	Land Surveyor	35 18	Dunedin Andersons bay	4 years 2 years	In the house of Peter McTarnsh, Anderson's Bay	Allison Tarnsh, formerly McKay, Mother	May 19	Donald M Stewart
29	17 May 1860	Robert Jenkins Agnes Brown Kilgour	Robert Jenkins Agness Brown Kilgour 💍 1860/3123	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	21 18	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 4 years	Episcopal Church Dunedin	Alexander Kilgour, Father of Agnes Brown Kilgour	May 17	Edward G. Edwards
30	18 May 1860	John Main Catharine Jenkins	Job John Wain Catherine Jenkins 💍 1860/3198	Bachelor Spinster	Stable Keeper	24 20	Dunedin Wakari Dunedin	8 years 4 years	In the home of Peter Jenkins	Peter Jenkins, Father	May 18	Donald M Stewart
31	19 May 1860	Alexander Wood Helen Wetherston	Alexander Wood Helen Watherston 💍 1860/3195	Bachelor Spinster	Stoker	31 23	Dunedin North east Valley	1 year 2 years	In the house of Peter Wetherston		May 19	Donald M Stewart
32	23 May 1860	James Somerville Isabella Begg	James Somerville Isabella Begg 💍 1860/3174	Bachelor Spinster	Agriculturist	30 23	Andersons bay Andersons bay	11 years 11 years	In the house of Adam Begg		June 7	Thomas Burns
33	30 May 1860	William Murray Susan Langlands	William Murray Susan Langlands 💍 1860/3226	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	30 30	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 2 weeks	In the home of Jane Barnwell		May 30	Thomas Burns
34	11 June 1860	Alexander Wilson Agnes Nesbit	Alexander Nilson Agnes Nisbet 💍 1860/3290	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	33 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 years	In the Registrars Office Dunedin	No Relation in the Colony	June 12	John Gillies Registrar
35	12 June 1860	John Stewart Barr Grace Fairley	John Stewart Barr Grace Fairley 💍 1860/2824	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	22 21	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 2 years	Knox Church Dunedin
36	15 June 1860	John Randolph Murray Isabella Walker	John Randolph Murray Isabella Walker 💍 1860/3156	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 2 years	In the house of David Robertson Russell Street Dunedin		June 20 1860	D. M. Stewart
37	18 June 1860	Robert Wray Allison Waugh	Robert McKay Alison Waugh 💍 1860/3159	Bachelor Spinster	Confectioner	24 19	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 2 years	In the house of John Dodds	No Relation in the Colony	June 18	D. M. Stewart

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).