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 310

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 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
48	10 March 1862	William Draper Naomi Rebecca Beasley	William Draper Naomi Rebecca Beasley 💍 1862/3280	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	29 21	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 9 days	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin			10 March 1862	Rev Edmund Colonna
49	10 March 1862	John Ward Margaret Hall	John Ward Margaret Hall 💍 1862/3286	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 3 months	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin			10 March 1862	Rev Edward Edward
50	11 March 1862	Ralph Abercromby Green Jessie Trail Fraser	Ralph Abercromby Gunn Jessie Trail Fraser 💍 1862/3152	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	44 26	Port Chalmers Dunedin	12 days 12 days	In the dwelling house of John Rafail Matheson			11 March 1862	Rev D M Stuart
51	17 March 1862	Thomas Neave Catharine Sharp	Thomas Neave Catherine Sharp 💍 1862/3393	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	25 24	Port Chalmers Dunedin	8 months 10 months	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin			17 March 1862	John Gilles Ryerson Marriages Dunedin
52	17 March 1862	Richard Howarth Sarah Partis	Richard Howarth Sarah Partis 💍 1862/3396	Widower Spinster	Merchant	32 32	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 6 months	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin			17 March 1862	John Gilles Ryerson Marriages Dunedin
53	18 March 1862	Edmund Peel Kenyon Charlotte Murison	Edmund Peel Kenyon Charlotte Dick Murison 💍 1862/3591	Bachelor Spinster	Solicitor	30 23	Dunedin Littlewood Goodwood	3 years 2 years	In the Episcopal Church Waikouaiti	Waikawaiti District		18 March 1862	Rev John A Forth
54	18 March 1862	William Preece Eliza Howers	William Preece Eliza Haver 💍 1862/3283	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	21 21	Sawyer's bay Dunedin	7 months 2 years	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin			18 March 1862	Rev Edward G Edm
55	20 March 1862	William Wintrup Helen Bruce	William Wintrup Helen Bruce 💍 1862/3059	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	28 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 3 years	In the house of William Wintrup Maitland Street Dunedin			20 March 1862	Rev. Thomas Burn
56	21 March 1862	James Smeaton Jane Johnston	James Smeaton Jane Johnston 💍 1862/3167	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	24 20	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 6 months	In the house of Duncan McFarlane Pelichet Bay Dunedin		Hugh Johnston, Father	25 March 1862	Rev D M Stuart
57	22 March 1862	Henry Watson Agnes McGregor	Henry Watson Agnes McGrigor 💍 1862/3164	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 8 months	In the house of John Witherspoon Stewart Street Dunedin			22 March 1862	Rev D M Turn

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).