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 349

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
286	10 September 1863	Charles Calder Jane Agnes Dunlop	Charles Calder Jane Agnes Dunlop 💍 1863/4359	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	34 years 21 years	Dunedin Wakari, Dunedin	5 years 14 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	1385		10 September 1863	Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin
287	11 September 1863	Alexander Henry Baxter Mary Clarke		Bachelor Widow	Miner	32 years 28 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church, Dunedin	1224		11 September 1863	Rev. D. M. Stuart
288	11 September 1863	John Grant Elizabeth Meikle	Jno Grant Elizabeth Meikle 💍 1863/4588	Bachelor Spinster	Agriculturist	30 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 weeks	In the house of William Meikle, Russell Street, Dunedin	1341	William Meikle, Father	11 September 1863	Rev. D. M. Stuart
289	11 September 1863	William Black Janet Spence	Wm Black Janet Spence 💍 1863/4833	Bachelor Spinster	Coach Builder	34 years 32 years	Dunedin Dunedin	22 months 6 months	In Knox Church, Dunedin	1225		11 September 1863	Rev. D. M. Stuart
290	11 September 1863	John Halpin Mary Casey	John Halpin Mary Casey 💍 1863/4836	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	31 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 months 9 months	In the Roman Catholic Church, Dunedin	1226		11 September 1863	Rev. D. Moreau
291	12 September 1863	Robert James Campbell Catherine Mackin	Robert James Campbell Cathrine Mackin 💍 1863/4824	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	28 years 22 years	East Harbour Dunedin	2 months 3 days	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	1222		12 September 1863	Rev. Edward G. Edwards
292	12 September 1863	John Smyth Fleming Maria Hazel	John Smyth Fleming Maria Hazel 💍 1863/5407	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	29 years 26 years	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	6 weeks 1 week	In the house of the Revd. William Johnston, Sawyers Bay			14 September 1863	Rev. William Johnston
293	14 September 1863	Charles Henry Attwood Sarah Newman	Charles Henry Attwood Sarah Newman 💍 1863/4576	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	27 years 17 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 4 years	In the Episcopal Church, Dunedin	1337	Benjamin Newman, Father	14 September 1863	Rev. Edward G. Edwards
294	15 September 1863	Clement Lawford Maria Keys	Clement Lawford Maria Keys 💍 1863/4579	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper	30 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 10 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	1338		15 September 1863	Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin

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).