Intentions to Marry, 1864

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840376, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 396

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1864

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
400	28 December 1864	Richard White Anney Wickham	Richard White Annie Odhamm 💍 1864/5819	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	33 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 1 yr	The Episcopal Church Dunedin	15/7		28 December 1864	Rev. E. G. Edwards
401	29 December 1864	James Richard Davies Ada Augusta Hart	James Richard Davis Ada Augusta Hart 💍 1864/5816	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	23 22	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 3 yrs	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin	1566		29 December 1864	Rev. E G. Edwards
402	29 December 1864	John Dalgleish Sarah Williams	John Dalgleish Sarah Williams 💍 1865/9244	Bachelor Spinster	Bank Inspector	28 21	Dunedin Tokomairiro District	15 months 3 days	The house of James P. Maitland Tokomairiro District	769		29 December 1864	Revd. Mr. Kirkland
403	29 December 1864	Alexander Stewart Margaret Stoddart	Alexander Stewart Margaret Samuel 💍 1865/4034	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster	27 25	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 4 months	In the house of Robert Millar George Street Dunedin	1495		29 December 1864	Revd. D. M. Stuart
404	29 December 1864	Thomas Stewart Jemima Sinclair	Thomas Stewart Jemima S Manson 💍 1865/4031	Bachelor Spinster	Bookbinder	27 19	Dunedin Dunedin	15 months 15 months	In the house of Robert Millar George Street Dunedin	1496	No Person to give consent	29 December 1864	Revd. W. M. Stuart
405	29 December 1864	Duncan Taylor Catherine Ferguson	Duncan Taylor Catharine Ferguson 💍 1864/6146	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	7 days 14 days	In the house of James Wilson Nelson Row Dunedin	1415		29 December 1864	Rev. W. M. Stuart
406	30 December 1864	David Whittet Mary Belfield	David Whittet Mary Belfield 💍 1865/8816	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	27 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 18 months	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin	619		30 December 1864	Revd. E. G. Edwards
407	30 December 1864	Enoch Harrison Rebekah Barter	Enoch Harrison Rebekah Mcarthur 💍 1865/8477	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	30 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 15 months	In the house of William Harkett George Street Dunedin	1499		30 December 1864	Revd. D. M. Stuart
408	31 December 1864	Cornelius Metcalf Mary Rennie	Cornelius Metaal Mary Rennie 💍 1865/8483	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 1 yr	In the house of Cornelius Metcalf Smith Street Dunedin	1499		31 December 1864	Revd. W. 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).