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 392

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
364	30 November 1864	Thomas Belshaw Buckley Elenore Caroline Marshall	Thomas Belshaw Buckley Eleonore Caroline Marshall 💍 1864/6045	Bachelor Spinster	Book Keeper	24 22	Dunedin Dunedin	7 yrs. 2 yrs	In the house of John Marshall York Place Dunedin	1189		30 November 1864	Rev. Thomas Burns
365	1 December 1864	William Henry Sturdy Elizabeth Clark	Wm Henry Sturdy Elizabeth Clark 💍 1864/6125	Bachelor Spinster	Salerman	30 19	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs. 1 yr.	Church Dunedin	1408	No Person to give Consent	1 December 1864	Rev. D. M. Stuart
366	2 December 1864	Louis Junge Margaret Livingston	Louis Junge Margaret Livingston 💍 1864/3615	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	33 18	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 1 yr.	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1248	No person to give Consent	2 December 1864	Registrar of marriages Dunedin
367	2 December 1864	Wellington Raymond Marion Whiteman	Wellington Raymond Marion White Mann 💍 1864/6039	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	24 22	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 7 yrs.	In the house of Mrs Mann Dunedin	1487		2 December 1864	Revd. Thomas Burns
368	2 December 1864	William Rae Margaret Wildon	William Rae Margaretta Wilson 💍 1864/5852	Bachelor Spinster	Timber Merchant	33 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 3 yrs.	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin	1589		2 December 1864	Revd. E. G. Edwards
369	2 December 1864	William Oram Ball Eliza Robinson	William Oram Ball Eliza Robinson 💍 1864/5849	Bachelor Spinster	Commission Agent	28 22	Dunedin Dunedin	1 yr. 4 days	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin	1558		2 December 1864	Rev. E. G. Edwards
370	3 December 1864	John Mackenzie Mary Hillin	John McKenzie Mary Killin 💍 1864/6036	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	23 18	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs. 10 months	In the house of John Mackenzie Russell Street Dunedin	1480	No Person to give Consent	3 December 1864	Rev. Thomas Burns
371	5 December 1864	James King Christina Beattie	James King Christina Beattie 💍 1864/6128	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	24 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church Dunedin	1409		5 December 1864	Rev. D. M. Stuart
372	5 December 1864	Henry James Fish Margaret MacEchern	Henry James Fish Margaret McEachern 💍 1864/5855	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	2 1/2 yrs 2 yrs.	In the Episcopal Church Dunedin	1560		5 December 1864	E. G. Edwards

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).