Intentions to Marry, 1863

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840375, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 4 2024

Page 355 A

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1863

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
333	30 October 1863	James Knight Neal Ann Elizabeth Townshend	James Knight Neal Ann Elizabeth Townshend 💍 1863/4848	Widower Widow	Distiller	51 29	Dunedin Dunedin	13 months 10 weeks	In the house of [UNCLEAR] at Sidey, Dunedin	1032		30 October 1863	Rev. D. M. Stuart
334	30 October 1863	John Bowers Eliza Etheridge	Jno Bowers Eliza Etheridge 💍 1863/4866	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	27 26	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 8 months	In the house of [UNCLEAR] [UNCLEAR] street, Dunedin	1114		30 October 1863	Rev. D. M. Stuart
335	31 October 1863	William Dunlop Mary Jaggart	William Dunlop Mary Taggart 💍 2004/9239	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	1106		31 October 1863	Registrar of Marriages
336	3 November 1863	James Bonner Ann McKail	James Bonner Ann McKail 💍 1863/4854	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	26 21	Otago Heads Dunedin	4 months 3 months	In the Roman Catholic Chapel, Dunedin	1110		3 November 1863	Rev. D. Moreau
337	5 November 1863	William Senior Annie Garrety	William Senior Annie Garretty 💍 1863/4887	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	28 26	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	1 year 4 months	In the house of William Senior, Main Street, Port Chalmers	1121		5 November 1863	Rev. Robert Smith
338	9 November 1863	David Kirkness Elizabeth Story	David Kirkness Elizabeth Storie 💍 1863/4863	Bachelor Spinster	Farmservant	32 26	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 days	In the house of Rev. Thomas Burns, Dunedin	1113		9 November 1863	Rev. Thomas Burns
339	10 November 1863	George Poulter Agnes Millar	George Poulter Agnes Millar 💍 1863/4911	Widower Spinster	Plumber	39 29	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 6 months	In Knox Church, Dunedin	1130		10 November 1863	Rev. D. M. Stuart
340	10 November 1863	Robert Ecclesfield Esther Niven	Robert Ecclesfield Esther Niven 💍 1863/6465	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	38 23	Dunedin Dunedin	12 days 10 days	In the house of the Rev. [UNCLEAR] Burns, Dunedin	606		10 November 1863	Rev. Thomas Burns
341	10 November 1863	Robert Weir Margaret Aitchison	Robt Weir Margaret Aitchison 💍 1863/4884	Bachelor Spinster	Shipmaster	22 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 1 year	In the house [UNCLEAR] [UNCLEAR] Street, Dunedin	1120	No person to give consent	10 November 1863	Rev. 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).