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 393

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
373	5 December 1864	Alfred Boot Isabette Ina Goun	Alfred Boot Kate MacGonn 💍 1864/6526	Bachelor Spinster	Dentist	21 20	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 7 yrs	In the Baptist Chapel Dunedin	1286	Catherine Mac young, mother	5 December 1864	Rev J.S. Parsons
374	6 December 1864	Thomas Bulling Margaret Anne Holmes	Thos Culling Margaret Ann Holmes 💍 1864/6131	Widower Spinster	Solicitor	32 22	Dunedin Dunedin	22 yrs 2 months	Knox church Dunedin	1410		7 December 1864	Revd. D. Stuart
375	7 December 1864	James Palmer Mary Bagley	James Palmer Mary Bagley 💍 1864/6559	Bachelor Spinster	Officer in Customs	29 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of Revd. Mr. Bonnelle Dunedin	1294	Benjamin Bagley Father	8 December 1864	Revd. R. Bonellee
376	8 December 1864	Anthony Barden Margaret Sutherland	Anthony Barden Margaret Sutherland 💍 1864/6042	Widower Widow	Smith	53 48	Dunedin Dunedin	22 months 3 yrs	In the Manse of the Revd. Thomas Burns Dunedin	1488		8 December 1864	Rev. Thomas Burns
377	8 December 1864	Thomas Brown Isabella McFarlane	Thos Brown Isabella McFarlane 💍 1864/6134	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	33 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 yrs	In the house of John McFarlane York Place Dunedin	1411		8 December 1864	Revd. D.M. Stuart
378	8 December 1864	William Wood Mary Teresa Galwoods	William Wood Mary Theresa Edwards 💍 1864/6821	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	24 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 1/2 yrs 3 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1249		8 December 1864	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
379	9 December 1864	Joseph Dunn Margaret Riley	Joseph Saunders Margaret Magee 💍 1864/8638 Joseph Patton Margaret McLaren 💍 1864/5182	Bachelor Spinster	Waiter	22 19	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 2 1/2 yrs	St. Josephs Chapel Dunedin	1456		9 December 1864	Rev. D. Moreau
380	9 December 1864	Robert Gibb Margaret Stanton	Robert Gibb Margaret Malcolm 💍 1864/6824	Widower Spinster	Blacksmith	25 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 days	In the office of the Registrar Dunedin	1250		9 December 1864	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
381	10 December 1864	Frederick Stoker Alicia McKenna	Fredrick Tropski Alicia McKenna 💍 1864/5691	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 1/2 yrs	St. Josephs Chapel Dunedin	1622		10 December 1864	Revd. D. Moreau

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).