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 333

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 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
773	18 November 1862	William Wood Mary Ann Webb	William Wood Mary Ann Webb 💍 1862/2814	Widower Spinster	Gentleman	45 20	Dunedin Dunedin	10 weeks 1 year	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	No person in the Colony to give consent	18 November 1862	Rev. Edward G. Edwards
774	21 November 1862	John Halliday Augusta Seliza Henrietta Jelly	John Halliday Augusta Selina Henrietta Jelly 💍 1862/3373	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 31	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 3 weeks	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin		21 November 1862	Rev. Edward G. Edwards
775	22 November 1862	William Blainey Ann Weaver	William Blainey Ann Weaver 💍 1862/2083	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 18	Dunedin Dunedin	7 days 5 months	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	No person in the Colony to give consent	22 November 1862	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
776	24 November 1862	Joseph Butcher Jessie McKenzie	Joseph Butcher Jessie McKenzie 💍 1862/2113	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 23	Dunedin Ditto	1 week 1 year	At the Residence of Mr. Ewen Mackenzie Dunedin		24 November 1862	Rev. D. M. Stuart
777	24 November 1862	Samuel Stocks Mary Ann Wilkson	Samuel Stocks Mary Ann Wilkson 💍 1862/3021	Widower Widow	Miner	49 36	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 6 months	In Knox Church Dunedin		24 November 1862	Rev. D. M. Stuart
778	25 November 1862	Heinrich Klahn Ann Garlicke	Henrich Klahn Ann Garlick 💍 1862/3376	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	34 30	Dunedin Dunedin	4 weeks 6 weeks	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin		25 November 1862	Rev. Edward G. Edwards
779	26 November 1862	Sydney Haigh Fanny Stewart	Sydney Haigh Fanny Stewart 💍 1862/3024	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	23 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 2 years	In the house of Donald Maori Hewart Dunedin		26 November 1862	Rev. D. M. Stuart
780	4 December 1862	James Lawrie Oliver Louisa Walker	James Lawrie Oliver Louisa Walker 💍 1862/3027	Widower Spinster	Miner	34 47	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 3 years	In Knox Church Dunedin		4 December 1862	Rev. D. M. Stuart
781	5 December 1862	George Pearson Agnes Aitken	George Pearson Agnes Aitken 💍 1862/2335	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 26	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 4 weeks	In the house of Edward Gift Carpenter, St. Andrew Street, Dunedin		5 December 1862	Rev. Thomas Burns, D.D

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).