1862 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840374, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

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

Page 332

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31st December 1862

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
211	11 November 1862	Archibald McKay Isabella Bracks	Archibald McKay Isabella Bracks 💍 1862/3015	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 years 22 years	Anderson's Bay Anderson's Bay	4 years 6 weeks	by the house of John Wilson, Carpenter, Lee Street, Dunedin		November 11	Rev. D. M. Stuart
212	12 November 1862	Richard Henry Leary Caroline Georgina Pope	Richard Henry Leary Caroline Georgina Pope 💍 1862/3370	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	22 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 4 days	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	James Pope, Father	November 12	Rev. Edward G. Eden
213	12 November 1862	James Burlay Honora Lyons	James Burlay Honora Lyons 💍 1862/2826	Bachelor Spinster	Constable	35 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	16 months 3 months	In the Roman Catholic Chapel, Dunedin		November 12	Rev. D. Moreau
214	14 November 1862	Alexander Brown Helen Lamb	Alexander Brown Helen Lamb 💍 1862/2920	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	32 years 31 years	Dunedin Dunedin	14 months 3 days	In the house of Alex Brown, Great King Street, Dunedin		November 14	Rev. D. M. Stuart
215	15 November 1862	William Dickson Elizabeth Smeaton	William Dickson Elizabeth Smeaton 💍 1862/2870	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	28 years 28 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week	the Rev. Dr Thomas Burns' house, Dunedin		November 15	Rev. Thomas Burns
216	15 November 1862	Alexander Saylor Jane Ramsay Wanless Hood	Alexander Paton Taylor Jane Ramsay Wanless Hood 💍 1862/2155	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	26 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 5 years	the house of James Ramage Hood, George Street, Dunedin	James Ramage Hood, Father	November 15	Rev. D. M. Stuart
217	17 November 1862	Francis John Alderson Jane Irvine Black	Francis John Alderson Jane Irvine Black 💍 1862/2341	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	29 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 1 year	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin		November 17	Rev. Edward G. Eden
218	17 November 1862	James Brown Louisa Jane Archer	James Brown Louisa Jane Arthur 💍 1862/3125	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	23 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 weeks 3 weeks	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	No person in the colony to give consent	November 17	Registrar of Marriages
219	17 November 1862	William Wilson Ann Daly	William Wilson Anne Daly 💍 1862/2828	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	34 years 29 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 weeks 1 year	In the house of the Rev. D. Moreau, Duncan Street, Dunedin		November 17	Rev. D. Moreau

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).