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 056

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 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
8	4 February 1860	David Smith Mary Culbert	David Smith Mary Culbert 💍 1860/3214	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	27 24	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 12 days	In the Lodging House of Mr John Flannyan		1860	Rev Thomas Burns
9	10 February 1860	George Millar Janet Armit	George Miller Janet Armit 💍 1860/3180	Bachelor Spinster	Stockkeeper	23 23	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 2 years	In the House of Mr George Adams		1860	Rev Thomas Burns
10	13 February 1860	Joseph Bower Johanna Calder	Joseph Bower Johanna Calder 💍 1860/3269	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	23 22	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 6 months	In the Deputy Registrars Office Dunedin		1860	Deputy Registrar Dunedin
11	21 February 1860	Stephen Watson Catherine Murchison	Stephen Watson Catherine Murchison 💍 1860/3278	Widower Spinster	Settler	56 31	lately at Jacobs River now at Dunedin East Taieri	3 weeks	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin		1860	Registrar Dunedin
12	27 February 1860	Robert Hammond Rachel Burns	Robert Hammond Rachel Burns 💍 1860/3281	Bachelor Spinster	Farmservant	21 17	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of The Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	No person in the colony entitled to give consent	1860	Registrar Dunedin
13	10 March 1860	James Curle Jane Robertson	James Curle Jane Robertson 💍 1860/3192	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith	21 21	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 18 months	In the Home of John Curle George Street Dunedin		1860	Rev D M Stewart
14	10 March 1860	Andrew Banbury Jessie Smith	Andrew Bamberry Jessie Smith 💍 1860/3284	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	26 23	Banbury, Long Upper Harbour do	2 years 2 weeks	In the Office of The Registrar of Marriages Dunedin		1860	The Registrar Dunedin
15	14 March 1860	Alexander Williamson Ellen Chase	Alexander Williamson Ellen Chase 💍 1860/3183	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	28 22	Dunedin do	10 years 2 years	St James's Lower Residence Dunedin Street Dunedin		1860	The Rev D M Stewart
16	17 March 1860	David Forsyth Mary Ann Strachan	David Forsyth Mary Ann Strachan 💍 1860/3189	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 22	Dunedin do	6 months 6 months	In the House occupied by Alexander Mathieson Princes Street Dunedin		1860	The Rev D M Stewart
17	26 March 1860	William John Roberts Elizabeth Fairley	William John Roberts Elizabeth Fairley 💍 1860/3106	Widower Spinster	Storekeeper	29 22	Dunedin do	7 months 21 months	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin		1860	The Rev Edmund 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).