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 350

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 September 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
295	21 September 1863	James Baxter Jane Wickham	James Baxter Jane Wickham 💍 1863/4027	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	31 30	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 1 year	In the house of the Revd. Thomas Burns, Dunedin	1480		21 September 1863	Rev. Thomas Burns
296	21 September 1863	Thomas Evans Sarah Ann Clive	Thomas Evans Sarah Ann Clive 💍 1863/4594	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	30 23	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 10 months	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	1343		21 September 1863	Rev. E. G. Edward
297	22 September 1863	Thomas Hetherington Elizabeth Martin	Thomas Hetherington Elizabeth Martin 💍 1863/4606	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 7 months	In the Roman Catholic Chapel, Dunedin	1347		22 September 1863	Rev. D. Moreau
298	24 September 1863	James Watson Jane Wheeler	James Watson Jane Wheeler 💍 1863/3447	Bachelor Spinster	Drapers Assistant	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 15 months	Knox Church, Dunedin	1354		24 September 1863	Rev. D. M. Stuart
299	24 September 1863	George Sampson Christiana Page	George Sampson Christiana Page 💍 1863/4433	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	32 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 7 months	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	1349	George Page, father	24 September 1863	Rev. E. G. Edward
300	25 September 1863	James Cook Mary McCarthy	James Cook Mary McCarthy 💍 1863/4609	Bachelor Spinster	Bank Clerk	31 25	Dunedin Dunedin	7 months 3 days	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1348		25 September 1863	Rev. D. Moreau
301	25 September 1863	James Smith Margaret Gordon	James Smith Margaret Gordon 💍 1863/4030	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	24 27	Dunedin Dunedin	11 months 9 months	In the house of Mrs. Douglas, Dunedin	1481		25 September 1863	Rev. Thomas Burns
302	25 September 1863	William Bruce Agnes Thomson	Wm Bruce Agnes Thomson 💍 1863/4445	Bachelor Spinster	Mason	29 28	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 2 years	In the house of George Thomson, Albany Street, Dunedin	1353		25 September 1863	Rev. D. M. Stuart
303	26 September 1863	Thomas Rainford Jane Wheeler	Thomas Rainford Jane Wheeler 💍 1863/4024	Bachelor Spinster	Musician	28 17	Dunedin Dunedin	8 weeks 11 months	In the house of the Revd. Thomas Burns, Dunedin	1479	John Wheeler, father	26 September 1863	Rev. Thomas Burns

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).