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 364

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 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
131	26 April 1864	John Walloran Mary Mungovan	John O'Halloran Mary Mungavan 💍 1864/5774	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 27	Dunedin Dunedin	18 mths 2 years	St. Josephs Chapel Dunedin	1593		26 April 1864	Revd. D. Moreau
132	27 April 1864	Michael Hanning Mary Ann Hathaway	Michael Hanning Fanny McCarthy 💍 1864/5777	Bachelor Spinster	[UNCLEAR]	23 25	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 3 days	St. Josephs Chapel Dunedin	1594		27 April 1864	Revd. D. Moreau
133	27 April 1864	Robert Dunlop Janet Lumsden	Robert Dunlop Janet Lumsden Jopp 💍 1864/6286	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	24 25	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of Robert Dunlop of Gt. King Street Dunedin	1339		27 April 1864	Revd. A.M. Stuart
134	28 April 1864	Henry Almond Anna Maria McDonnell	Henry Dumond Anna Maria McDonnell 💍 1864/5780	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	26 18	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 13 months	St. Josephs Chapel Dunedin		No person to give consent	28 April 1864	Revd. D. Moreau
135	28 April 1864	William Ellison Margaret Philips	William Ellison Margaret Philips 💍 1864/6290	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	34 29	Dunedin Dunedin	6 weeks 4 yrs	In the house of Mrs Rewelle Bell hill Dunedin	1340		28 April 1864	Revd. A. M. Stuart
136	29 April 1864	John Joshua Gresham Anna Maria Short	John Joshua Gresham Anna Maria Short 💍 1864/6532	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	29 20	Dunedin Dunedin	10 months 3 days	In the house of the Revd. R. Connebee George Street Dunedin	1282	Mary Ann Short, Mother	29 April 1864	Revd. R. Connebee
137	29 April 1864	Edmund Couston Catherine McKie	Edmund Couston Catherine McPhee 💍 1864/6229	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	20 21	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 2 yrs	In the house of the Revd. Thomas Burns Dunedin	1447	Eliza Couston, Mother	29 April 1864	Revd. Thomas Burns
138	2 May 1864	William Laing Elizabeth McGuire	William Laing Elisabeth Ogilvie Malcolm 💍 1864/5644	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	30 27	Leaversham Leaversham	2 yrs 2 weeks	Cottage Leaversham	1646		2 May 1864	Revd. A. [UNCLEAR]
139	4 May 1864	William Homan Ronayne Maria Jane Bell	William Housan Mayne Maria Jane Bell 💍 1864/5783	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	29 22	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 22 yrs.	In the house of Mrs. Bell High Street Dunedin	1341		4 May 1864	Revd. A.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).