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 292

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
111	12 October 1861	John Laurance 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 Calcuttt Deputy Registrar
112	12 October 1861	William Japets Caloway Robina Christina Mayor	Wm Cassels Galloway Rebena Christina Mayor 💍 1861/3068	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	24 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 1 year	At the house of Mr King street Dunedin		12 October 1861	D.M. Stuart
113	12 October 1861	George Page Eliza Park	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
114	14 October 1861	John Bannon Ruth Anne Brown	John Bannon Ruth Anne Browne 💍 1861/3059	Bachelor Spinster	Copper Smelter	32 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 3 weeks	In the house of the Rev D.M. Stuart Dunedin		14 October 1861	D.M. Stuart
115	14 October 1861	Alfred Quertier Margaret Keays	Alfred Quartier Margaret Keays 💍 1861/3109	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	21 22	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 15 months	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin		14 October 1861	Edward L. Edwards
116	18 October 1861	John M. Donald Rebecca Mckenzie	John McDonald Rebecca McKenzie 💍 1861/3071	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	34 21	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 8 days	In the house of Donald Roy Carpenter, Castle Street Dunedin		18 October 1861	D.M. Stuart
117	21 October 1861	Alfred Watts Allison Glen	Alfred Watts Alison Glen 💍 1861/2708	Bachelor Spinster	Stoker	21 17	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 14 years	In the house of Elizabeth Glen Dunedin	Elizabeth Glen, Mother	22 October 1861	Thomas Burns
118	28 October 1861	Alexander Macauley Lillias Sutherland	Alexander Macaulay Lilias Sutherland 💍 1861/2711	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	32 23	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 3 weeks	In the house of James Murray, Clothier, Stafford Street Dunedin		28 October 1861	Thomas Burns
119	29 October 1861	James Marshall Marion Campbell	James Marshall Marion Campbell 💍 1861/2702	Bachelor Spinster	Mer. Chant	24 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 10 years	In the house of Daniel Campbell, London Street Dunedin	Daniel Campbell, Father	29 October 1861	Thomas Burns
120	30 October 1861	Frank Alfred Orbell Margaret Lucy Few	Frank Alfred Orbell Margaret Lucy Few 💍 1861/3115	Bachelor Spinster	Flock owner	25 19	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 12 months	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin	No Guardian in the Colony	30 October 1861	Edward L. 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).