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 284

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 September 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
70	12 July 1861	John Currie Alice Fairburn	John Currie Alice Fairbairn 💍 1861/2981	Bachelor Spinster	Mason	25 22	Dunedin East Taieri	4 months 6 months	In the house of Alexander Fairburn East Taieri		12 July 1861	William Mill
71	13 July 1861	John Bournes Hannah Bell	John Barnes Hannah Bell 💍 1861/1628	Widower Widow	Contractor	44 45	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 2 years	In the Episcopal Church		13 July 1861	Edward G. Edwards
72	17 July 1861	Joseph Anderson Margaret Morrison	Joseph Anderson Margaret Morrison 💍 1861/3020	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	23 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 3 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages		17 July 1861	John Gillies Registrar
73	18 July 1861	Henry Brook Christian Dods	Henry Crook Christina Dods 💍 1861/3013	Bachelor Spinster	Stockowner	38 34	Otago Heads Port Chalmers	14 years 20 months	In the house of John Thomson Storekeeper		18 July 1861	William Johnston
74	23 July 1861	Alexander Carrick Isabella Amelia Parker	Alexr Carrick Isabella Amelia Parker 💍 1861/3205	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	26 20	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 6 months	In the house of Joseph Sykes Webb Merchant residing on Walker Street Dunedin	No Guardian in The Colony	23 July 1861	D. M. Stuart
75	27 July 1861	Thomas Samuel Watson Elizabeth Strachan		Bachelor Spinster	Commission Agent Agent	22 22	Dunedin Dunedin	17 years 3 years	In the house of William Strachan Labourer High Street Dunedin		27 July 1861	D. M. Stuart
76	30 July 1861	George Borwick Catharine M'Aulay	George Borwick Catherine Macaulay 💍 1861/2801	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	8 days 8 days	In the house of James Murray Tailor Stafford Street Dunedin		30 July 1861	Thomas Burns
77	3 August 1861	Dunbar McCabe Bridget Jennings	Dunbar McCabe Bridget Jennings 💍 1861/3023	Bachelor Spinster	Chemist	22 18	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 4 months	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	Bridget Jennings Mother	3 August 1861	John Gillies Registrar
78	10 August 1861	Kenneth Morrison Margaret Mathieson	Kenneth Morrison Margaret Matheson 💍 1861/3016	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	29 22	Northeast Harbour Port Chalmers	2 years 4 days	In the Rev. William Johnston's house Port Chalmers		10 August 1861	William Johnston
79	12 August 1861	Augustus Hutton Shury Janet Chapman	Augustus Hutton Shury Janet Chapman 💍 1861/2761	Bachelor Spinster	Bank Clerk	26 18	Dunedin North east Valley	10 months 12 years	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin	William Chapman Father	12 August 1861	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).