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 394

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
382	10 December 1864	Charles Irvin Millicent Hollingworth	Charles Mirfin Millincent Hollingworth 💍 1864/6562	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	22 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 2 yrs	Res. of Richard Connebee	1295	No Person to give consent	10 December 1864	Revd. Richard Connebee
383	12 December 1864	Henry John Butler Jessie Orbell	Henry John Miller Jessie Orbell 💍 1864/6779	Bachelor Spinster	Run holder	24 16	Dunedin Waikouaite	6 months 24 yrs	Church Waikouaite	1333	John Johns	12 December 1864	Revd. J. Dasent
384	13 December 1864	Jeremiah Callaghan Jamesina Inwood	Jeremiah Callaghan Jamesina McLeod 💍 1864/5655	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 28	Portobello Portobello	2 yrs 1 1/2 yrs	In the Res. of Revd. P. Geoghegan	635		13 December 1864	Revd. P. Geoghegan
385	13 December 1864	Edward Reilly Kate Kean	Edward Reilly Catherine Kean 💍 1864/4188	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	27 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 1 yr	In St. Josephs Chapel Dunedin			13 December 1864	Revd. D. Moreau
386	13 December 1864	Alexander King Margaret Hart	Alexr King Margaret Hart 💍 1864/6137	Bachelor Spinster	Dealer	34 22	Dunedin Dunedin	1 yr 10 yrs	In the house of Dennis Heenan George Street	1412		13 December 1864	Revd. D. M. Stuart
387	19 December 1864	Myrick Jones Mary Ann McDonald	Myrick Jones Mary Ann McDonald 💍 1864/5861	Widower Spinster	Butcher	26 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 2 yrs	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin	1562		19 December 1864	Revd. E. G. Edwards
388	19 December 1864	Niels Olsen Frances Brown	Niels Olsen Frances Brown 💍 1864/5858	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	36 20	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 yr	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin	1561	Thomas Francis Brown, Father	19 December 1864	Revd. E. G. Edwards
389	21 December 1864	Peter Thomson Mary Blair	Peter Thomson Mary McNair 💍 1864/6050	Widower Spinster	Printer	50 29	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of Robert Gillies Park Street Dunedin	1491		21 December 1864	Revd. Thomas Burns
390	22 December 1864	John Marshall Brown Janet Harvey	John Marshall Brown Janet Harvey 💍 1864/6053	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	27 19	Dunedin Dunedin, Caversham	5 yrs 7 yrs	In the house of Benjamin Harvey Caversham	1492	Benjamin Harvey, father	22 December 1864	Revd. Thomas Burns

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).