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 363

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
122	21 April 1864	Alexander Brown Bridget Hughes	Alexander Brown Bridget Hughes 💍 1864/6226	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	40 30	Dunedin Dunedin	1 yr 3 days	Mans of Revd Thomas Burns @ Dunedin	1445	22 April 1864	Revd Thomas Burns
123	21 April 1864	Robert Farmer Jessie McIntyre	Robert Farmer Jessie McIntyre 💍 1864/6283 Robert Andrews Greenslade Jessie McIntyre 💍 1864/5191	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	29 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 3 months	Church, Dunedin	1338	21 April 1864	Revd Alty. Stuart
124	22 April 1864	John Campbell Euphemia McTaggart	John Campbell Euphemia McTaggart 💍 1864/6277	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman	24 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 Months	In the house Mr Mayshop Royal Terrace	1336	22 April 1864	Revd D. M. Stuart
125	22 April 1864	James Gordon Catherine Anderson	James Jordon Catherine Anderson 💍 1864/5673	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 21	Port Chalmers Sawyers Bay	1 yr. 6 months	In the house of Joseph Morris Sawyers Bay	1636	22 April 1864	Revd J. H. Slaughter
126	22 April 1864	William Henry Mumford Julia Isabella Matthews	William Henry Mumford Julia Isabella Matthews 💍 1864/3850	Bachelor Spinster	Shipping Agent	27 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 6 months	Mr Josephs Chapel	1260	22 April 1864	Revd C. Morran
127	23 April 1864	William Henry Mumford Julia Isabella Matthews	William Henry Mumford Julia Isabella Matthews 💍 1864/3850	Bachelor Spinster	Shipping Agent	27 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 6 months	In the office of the Registrar of marriages	1260	23 April 1864	Registrar of Marriages
128	25 April 1864	William Mitchell Elizabeth Furman	William Mitchell Elizabeth Gorman 💍 1864/5957	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	26 22	Dunedin Dunedin	5 weeks 10 months	In the [UNCLEAR]	1516	25 April 1864	Revd Edwards
129	26 April 1864	Alexander Kerr Christie Margaret Bruce	Alexander Kerr Christie Margaret Bruce 💍 1864/9386	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	30 27	Dunedin Dunedin	12 months 8 months	In the house of William Goldie Maori Hill Dunedin	1283	26 April 1864	Revd R. Connebee
130	26 April 1864	Hiram Hallworth Amelia Salamone	Hiram Wallsworth Amelia Dalamore 💍 1864/6565	Bachelor Widow	Hatter	33 37	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 5 days	In the house of Mr Hardy Dowling Stuart Street Dunedin	1296	26 April 1864	Revd J. Aldred

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).