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 330

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 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
126	7 May 1863	Peter Wright Helena Limmon	Peter Wright Helena Lennon 💍 1863/5166	Bachelor Spinster	Wheelwright	25 18	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 9 months	In the Roman Catholic Chapel, Dunedin	1017	No person to give Consent	7 May 1863	Rev. D. More
127	8 May 1863	Robert Steel Marion Dent	Robert Steel Marion Dent 💍 1863/4178	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	24 21	Dunedin Dunedin	8 days 6 weeks	In the house of the Rev. Thomas Burns, Dunedin	1448		8 May 1863	Rev. Thomas Burns
128	9 May 1863	William Todd Mary Wilson White	William Todd Mary Wilson White 💍 1863/4655	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 21	Dunedin Dunedin	21 months 12 months	In the house of James White, Carpenter, Great King Street, Dunedin	1238		9 May 1863	Rev. D. M. Stuart
129	9 May 1863	William Henry Lacy Martha Barclay	William Henry Lacey Martha Barclay 💍 1863/4129	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	30 22	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 7 months	In the house of John Wilson, his father, Dunedin	1452		9 May 1863	Rev Thomas Burns
130	11 May 1863	John Cunningham Mary Burns	John Cunningham Mary Burns 💍 1863/4120 John Duff Mary Burns 💍 1863/3886	Bachelor Spinster	Victualler	21 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 weeks	In the house of the Rev. Thomas Burns, Dunedin	1449		11 May 1863	Rev. Thomas Burns
131	11 May 1863	James Lambourne Mary Ballantyne	James Lambourne Mary Ballantyne 💍 1863/4805	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 18	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 3 years	In the house of Thomas Swanerton, M.D., Maclaggan Street Bay, Dunedin	1235	Francis Feather Ballantyne	11 May 1863	Rev D. M. Stuart
132	11 May 1863	John Johnstone Catherine Kilpatrick	John Johnstone Catherine Kilpatrick 💍 1863/4808	Bachelor Widow	Miner	27 30	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 8 months	In the house of the Rev. Thomas Burns, Dunedin	1236		11 May 1863	Rev. Thomas Burns
133	12 May 1863	Denis Toban Catherine Marr	Denis Tobin Catherine Mara 💍 1863/5172	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 24	Dunedin Dunedin	7 days 5 months	In the Roman Catholic Chapel, Dunedin	1019		12 May 1863	Rev. D. Moreau
134	12 May 1863	Charles Warren Mary Leishman	Charles Warren Mary Leishman 💍 1863/5016	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	27 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 5 months	In the house of Charles Warren, Russell Street, Dunedin	1167		12 May 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).