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 335

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1862

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
22 December 1862	Simon Fahay Marye Hughes	Simon Fahey Maria Hughes 💍 1862/2831	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 10 days	In the Roman Catholic Chapel Dunedin		22 December 1862	Revd D. Moreau
22 December 1862	Jobling Watts Christina Smeaton	Jobling Watts Christina Smeaton 💍 1862/2877	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor	28 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	12 months 18 months	In the house of Mrs Mac Intyre Dowling Street Dunedin		22 December 1862	Revd Thomas Burns, D.D.
23 December 1862	James Lees Sarah Davies	James Lees Sarah Davies 💍 1862/3381	Bachelor Spinster	Gunsmith	27 years 21 years	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	6 years 1 month	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin		23 December 1862	Revd Edward G. Edwards
24 December 1862	George Boag Louisa Perry	George Boaz Louisa Perry 💍 1862/2840	Widower Spinster	Lawyer	30 years 26 years	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	3 months 4 years	In the house of the Revd Isaac Harding, Row, Dunedin		24 December 1862	Revd Isaac Harding
24 December 1862	George Stumbles Mary Ann Perry	George Stumbles Mary Ann Perry 💍 1862/2837	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	26 years 17 years	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	12 months 4 years	In the house of the Revd Isaac Harding, Row, Dunedin	Thomas Perry, Father	24 December 1862	Revd Isaac Harding
26 December 1862	William Brooks Evandorina Calder	Wm Brooks Evanderina Calder 💍 1862/3032	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	23 years 18 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 week	Knox Church, Dunedin	No person in Colony entitled to give consent	27 December 1862	Revd D. M. Stuart
26 December 1862	William Henry Henney Mary McDonald	William Henry Henney Mary McDonald 💍 1862/2885	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	39 years 18 years	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 5 weeks	In the house of Mr William Henry Henney, Carpenter, George Street, Dunedin	No person in Colony entitled to give consent	26 December 1862	Revd Thomas Burns, D.D.
29 December 1862	Archibald Valentine Mary Maxwell	Archibald Valentine Mary Maxwell 💍 1862/2764	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 years 19 years	Dunedin Green Island	4 days 4 years	In Green Island Church	James Maxwell, Father	29 December 1862	Revd William Will
30 December 1862	Richard Anthony Longdon Jessie Gilchrist	Richard Anthony Congdon Jessie Gilchrist 💍 1863/5454	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	32 years 31 years	Dunedin Dunedin	14 months 3 years	In William Morton's house at the water of Leith		30 December 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 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).