Intentions to Marry, 1861

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840373, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 11 2024

Page 289

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1861

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
104	03 October 1861	George Christie Henderson Semima Grant	George Christie Henderson Jemima Grant 💍 1861/3053	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 9 months	In the house of Robert Murray Rattray Street Dunedin		03 October 1861	D M. Stuart
107	09 October 1861	Ralph Sleigh Marion Jane Kennedy	Ralph E A Sleigh Marion Jane Kennedy 💍 1861/1666	Bachelor Spinster	Surgeon	24 19	Green Island Green Island	6 days 4 months	In the dwelling house of James Kennedy Green Island	James Kennedy, Father	09 October 1861	William Mill
108	09 October 1861	James Fraser Margaret Henderson	James Frazer Margaret Henderson 💍 1861/3065	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 18	Dunedin Caversham	1 month 11 months	In the dwelling house of James Henderson Caversham	James Henderson, Father	09 October 1861	D M. Stuart
109	10 October 1861	John Harper Isabella Taylor	John Harper Isabella Taylor 💍 1861/3056	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	21 21	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 9 months	At the house of The Rev D M. Stuart Dunedin		10 October 1861	D M. Stuart
110	12 October 1861	Thomas Neill Whyte Harriet Selina Perry	Thomas Nicol Whyte Harriet Selina Perry 💍 1861/2966	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 19	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	2 years 2 years	At the house of the Rev. W Johnston Port Chalmers		12 October 1861	W. Johnston
111	12 October 1861	John Lawrence Ann Simpson	John Lawrence Ann Simpson 💍 1861/3038	Bachelor Spinster	Ship Carpenter	40 22	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 days	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin		12 October 1861	Thomas Calentt Deputy Registrar
112	12 October 1861	William Capel Galloway Albina Christina Mayer	Wm Cassels Galloway Rebena Christina Mayor 💍 1861/3068	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	24 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 1 year	At the home of Alse Haig Great King Street Dunedin		12 October 1861	D M. Stuart
113	12 October 1861	George Page Eliza Parke	George Page Eliza Park 💍 1861/3062	Bachelor Spinster	Steward	25 27	Dunedin Dunedin	6 weeks 1 week	In the house of The Rev D M Stuart Dunedin		14 October 1861	D M. Stuart
127	16 November 1861	Charles Smith Helen Dunem	Charles Smith Helen Duncan 💍 1861/2743	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	27 21	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 3 years	At the home of Charles Smith Dunedin		16 November 1861	Thomas Burns

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).