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 315

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 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
82	10 May 1862	Alexander Kilgour Eupherma Seat	Alexander Kilgour Euphemia Peat 💍 1862/2787	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	22 years 17 years	Dunedin East Taieri	6 years 2 years	In the house of Alexander Seat, East Taieri	Alexander Seat, Father	10 May 1862	Revd William Will
83	12 May 1862	Charles Thomas Malpas Mary Ann Pettiford	Charles Thomas Malpas Mary Ann Pettiford 💍 1862/3304	Bachelor Spinster	Tin Plate & Iron Worker & Smith	24 years 16 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 3 months	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	Sarah Pettiford, Mother	12 May 1862	Revd E. G. Edwards
84	14 May 1862	Robert Souter Helen Jobson Hay	Robert Souter Helen Jobson Hay 💍 1862/2161	Bachelor Spinster	Dressman	26 years 16 years	Dunedin Dunedin	7 months 2 months	In the house of William Hay, York Place, Dunedin	William Hay, Father	14 May 1862	Revd Thomas Burns, D. D.
85	16 May 1862	Frederick Wain Mary Eleanor Maslen	Frederick Wain Mary Helena Maslen 💍 1862/3307	Bachelor Spinster	Hostler	22 years 17 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 10 weeks	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	No person to give consent	16 May 1862	Revd Edward G. Edwards
86	19 May 1862	Andrew McKenzie Jane Wilson	Andrew McKenzie Jane Wilson 💍 1862/3196	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 years 19 years	Dunedin Blueskin	4 years 3 years	In the house of John Wilson, Settler, Blueskin	John Wilson, Father	22 May 1862	Revd D. M. Stuart
87	20 May 1862	Johannes Bapistus Von der Sloot Maria Jane Emit Jago	Johannes Baptiste Van-Der-Sloot Maria Jane Emmet Jago 💍 1862/3310	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	21 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 years	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	John Netherton Jago, Father	20 May 1862	Revd Edward G. Edwards
88	21 May 1862	Allan King Agnes McIlwraith Broom	Allan King Agnes McIlwraith Broom 💍 1862/3083	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	26 years 25 years	Green Island Anderson's Bay	3 months 2 weeks	In the house of James Sanderson, Anderson's Bay		21 May 1862	Revd Thomas Burns, D. D.
89	22 May 1862	William McLaren Kinross Mary McIntyre Mackenzie	Wm McLaren Kinross Mary McIntyre McKenzie 💍 1862/3184	Bachelor Spinster	Manager of a Sheep Station	27 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 5 months	In the house of Revd George, Dunedin		22 May 1862	Revd D. M. Stuart
90	26 May 1862	Frederick Dick Mary Chapman Thomson	Frederick Dick Mary Chapman Thompson 💍 1862/3187	Widower Widow	Clerk	39 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 1 year	In the house of John Gillies, Queen Street, Dunedin		26 May 1862	Revd D. M. Stuart

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).