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 325

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
81	1 April 1863	William Clark Mary Hudson	William Clark Mary Hudson 💍 1863/5386	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper	25 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	12 months 4 months	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	1092		1 April 1863	Rev E. G. Edwards
82	1 April 1863	Thomas Francis Kennelly Emelia Caroline Gideon	Thomas Francis Kennelly Emily Caroline Gideon 💍 1863/5380	Bachelor Widow	Gentleman	25 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 days	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	1090		1 April 1863	Rev E. G. Edwards
83	1 April 1863	John Dunwell Jane Leishman	John Dunwell Jane Leishman 💍 1863/4207	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	22 years 18 years	Dunedin Dunedin	12 months 3 months	In the Residence of the Revd Thomas Burns, D.D., Dunedin	1437		1 April 1863	Rev Thomas Burns, D.D.
84	2 April 1863	Henry Lloyd Willis Emily Jennings	Henry Lloyd Willis Emily Jennings 💍 1863/5052	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	31 years 18 years	Dunedin Dunedin	20 months 15 months	In Knox Church Dunedin	1179	Thomas Heading Jennings, Father	2 April 1863	Rev D. M. Stuart
85	4 April 1863	Asher Benjamin Sarah Evershed	Asher Benjamin Sarah Evershed 💍 1863/5383	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	23 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 6 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	1091		4 April 1863	Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin
86	4 April 1863	William Hay Marion Anderson	William May Marion Anderson 💍 1863/5046 William Stark Agnes Anderson 💍 1863/7603 William Forbes Ann Anderson 💍 1863/5696	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 years 28 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 days 2 years	In the house of David Laborer, Mouthcown North East Valley	1177		4 April 1863	Rev D. M. Stuart
87	6 April 1863	George Easton Elizabeth Findlay	George Easton Elizabeth Findlay 💍 1863/4210	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	28 years 23 years	Port Chalmers Dunedin	1 year 6 months	In the house of George Findlay, Maclaggan Street, Dunedin	1438		6 April 1863	Rev Thomas Burns, D.D.
88	7 April 1863	James Williams Margaret Ritchie	James Williams Margaret Ritchie 💍 1863/4160	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	35 years 29 years	Port Chalmers North East Valley	2 years 1 year	In the house of the Revd Thos Burns, Dunedin	1442		7 April 1863	Rev Thomas Burns, D.D.
89	9 April 1863	James Gardner Margaret Shanks	James Garly Margaret Hughes 💍 1863/6300 James Cason Margaret Hosie 💍 1863/4905	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 years 21 years	Green Island Green Island	6 months 6 months	In the house of Mr Richard Quincon, Green Island			17 April 1863	Rev Jas. Heenday di Naughton

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).