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 362

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
113	12 April 1864	John Stevens Agnes Barr	John Stevenson Agnes Barr 💍 1864/6847	Bachelor Spinster	Stockman	25 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar	1259	No person to give consent	12 April 1864	Registrar of Marriages
114	13 April 1864	Anthony Heater Louisa Gerlach	Anthony Kater Louisa Gerlach 💍 1864/6268	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	28 26	Dunedin Dunedin	15 months 13 months	In Knox Church Dunedin	1333	John Gerlach, Father	13 April 1864	Revd. D.M. Stuart
115	15 April 1864	Thomas Burron Learne Hilliams Parsloe	Thomas Curran Caroline Williams Parsloe 💍 1864/3910	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel keeper	30 19	Dunedin North East Valley	2 yrs. 1 yr.	In the Episcopal Church	574	John Parsloe, Father	15 April 1864	Revd. E.G. Edwards
116	15 April 1864	Joseph Thindle Mary Ann Miles	Joseph Hindle Mary Ann Files 💍 1864/6667 Joseph Webber Mary Ann Ralf 💍 1864/4259 Joseph Gibbs Mary Ann Brown 💍 1864/5670 Joseph Harrison Mary Ann Wilson 💍 1864/6702	Bachelor Spinster	Dra[UNCLEAR]man	25 22	Dunedin Dunedin	5 Months 16 Months	In John Church, Dunedin	1332		15 April 1864	Revd. D.M. Stuart
117	16 April 1864	William Halliday Jane Shields	William Halliday Jane Childs 💍 1864/6280	Widower Widow	Hotel keeper	57 42	Dunedin Dunedin	10 months 15 months	In the Royal Hotel	1337		16 April 1864	Revd. D.M. Stuart
118	18 April 1864	David McLean Susan McIntosh	David Melvin Susan McGlashan 💍 1864/5667	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 25	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers	2 Months 5 Months	In the house of	1334		18 April 1864	J.H. MacNaughton
119	19 April 1864	John Gunn Mary Ann Marshall	John Nunn Mary Anne Marshall 💍 1864/3871	Bachelor Spinster	Linen Draper	27 20	Dunedin Dunedin	1 yr. 1 yr.	In the house of Mrs Marshall	1146	John Marshall, Father	19 April 1864	Revd. Thomas Burns D.D.
120	19 April 1864	George Bain Janet Bain	George Bain Janet Bain 💍 1864/6274	Widower Spinster	Farm Servant	33 25	Wakari Wakari	2 yrs. 1 yrs.	By the house of Redpath	1335		19 April 1864	Revd. D.M. Stuart
121	19 April 1864	John Hartley Euphemia Hilgour	Jno Hartley Euphemia Kilgour 💍 1864/6302	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 23	Upper Harbour Upper Harbour	6 yrs. 1 yr.	In the house of Thomas Hilgour	1345		19 April 1864	Revd. D.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).