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 322

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 September 1862

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
138	18 July 1862	Thomas Leal Elizabeth Dixon Johnston	Thomas Leah Elizabeth Dixon Johnstone 💍 1862/2799	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	26 23	Dunedin Green Island	3 months 2 months	In the house of William Johnston, Green Island			18 July 1862	Rev. William Will
139	21 July 1862	George Crosbie Mary Taylor	George Crosbie Mary Taylor 💍 1862/3095	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	24 18	North East Valley North East Valley	2 years 2 years	In the house of James Taylor			21 July 1862	Rev. D. M. Stuart
140	21 July 1862	John Williams Mary Gulley	John Williams Mary Culley 💍 1862/2858	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	24 22	Dunedin Dunedin	7 months 10 days	In the house of the Rev. D. Moreau, Duncan Street, Dunedin			21 July 1862	Rev. D. Moreau
141	22 July 1862	Charles Ross Ann Gillespie	Charles Ross Ann Gillespie 💍 1862/2939	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	22 21	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 12 months	In the house of Charles Rofs, Stuart Street, Dunedin			22 July 1862	Rev. Thomas Burns
142	25 July 1862	John Cochrane Jane Somerville	John Cochrane Jane Somerville 💍 1862/3101	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 30	North Taieri Dunedin	2 months 2 years	In the dwelling house of William Somerville, Dunedin	North Taieri		25 July 1862	Rev. D. M. Stuart
143	26 July 1862	William Meldrum Hannah Wilson	William Meldrum Hannah Wilson 💍 1862/3325	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	19 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 5 months	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin			26 July 1862	Rev. Edward G.
144	26 July 1862	Simon M. Donald Mary Sinclair	Simon McDonald Mary Sinclair 💍 1862/3107	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	23 21	East Taieri Dunedin	7 months 6 months	In the house of William Chisholm, Blacksmith, East Taieri			26 July 1862	Rev. D. M. Stuart
145	28 July 1862	George Marriner Eliza Jarvis	George Morrison Eliza Jarvis 💍 1862/3328	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	27 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 3 months	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin			28 July 1862	Rev. Edward G.
146	2 August 1862	Charles Skerrett Jane Honners	Charles Skerritt Jane Honners 💍 1862/3331	Bachelor Spinster	Barman	27 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin		No person in the Colony to give consent	2 August 1862	Rev. Edward G.

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).