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 319

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
37	6 February 1863	Richard Edwards Ellen Newton	Richard Edwards Ellen Newton 💍 1863/5178	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	27 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 2 years	In the house of the Revd D. M. Stuart, Dunedin	1021	6 February 1863	Revd D. M. Stuart
38	7 February 1863	Phillip Brady Catharine Owens	Philip Brady Catherine Owens 💍 1863/5184	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 days 14 days	In the Roman Catholic Church, Dunedin	1023	7 February 1863	Revd D. Moreau
39	9 February 1863	John Craigie Sarah Airdale	John Craigie Sarah Airedale 💍 1863/3730	Bachelor Spinster	Shipwright	32 years 30 years	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	18 months 10 months	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	1028	9 February 1863	Revd Edward G. Edwards
40	14 February 1863	James Perry Finucane Mary O'Neill	James Perry Finucane Mary O'Neil 💍 1863/5187	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	27 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 18 months	In the house of the Revd D. Moreau, Duncan Street, Dunedin	1024	14 February 1863	Revd D. Moreau
41	14 February 1863	George Hector McDonald Mary Jeffreys	George Hector McDonald Mary Jeffreys 💍 1863/5202	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	37 years 31 years	Dunedin Dunedin	7 months 9 months	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	1030	14 February 1863	Revd Edward G. Edwards
42	14 February 1863	Thomas Floyd Dorethea Judith Hay Addington		Widower Spinster	Boat Builder	50 years 45 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 months 5 months	In Knox Church, Dunedin		14 February 1863	Revd D. M. Stuart
43	16 February 1863	Lewis Simmins Bridget Gleason		Bachelor Spinster	Clothier	28 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 8 months	In the house of the Revd D. Moreau, Duncan Street, Dunedin		16 February 1863	Revd D. Moreau
44	17 February 1863	John Brady Margaret Smith	John Brady Margaret Smith 💍 1863/5193	Widower Spinster	Laborer	45 years 34 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of the Revd D. Moreau, Duncan Street, Dunedin	1026	17 February 1863	Revd D. Moreau
45	17 February 1863	David Miller Ellen Miller Macpherson	David Miller Ellen Miller McPherson 💍 1863/4189	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	27 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 1 month	In the house of David Miller, Carpenter, Kaikorai Bush Hill	1431	17 February 1863	Revd 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).