1865 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840377, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 404

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
150	13 January 1865	Charles Robert Douglas Johnston Mary Johnston	Charles Keith Douglas May Johnston 💍 1865/8768	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	32 18	Dunedin Dunedin	9 days 2 yrs	In the house of Mrs Johnston, Canongate Dunedin	1602	Ann Johnston, mother	13 January 1865	Rev. Thomas Burns
151	13 January 1865	Andrew Davidson Mary M. Hay	Andrew Davidson Mary MacKay 💍 1865/8498	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman	23 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 4 weeks	In the house of Mrs Davidson, Fillcul Street Dunedin	1505		13 January 1865	Rev. W. M. Stuart
152	14 January 1865	Joseph Hobson Susan Paterson	Joseph Dobson Susan Paterson 💍 1865/8492	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	34 29	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 days	In Knox Church Dunedin	1502		14 January 1865	Rev. W. M. Stuart
153	14 January 1865	James Taylor Mary Ann Raith Spensid	James Taylor Mary Ann Raitt 💍 1865/4062 James Taylor Mary Hemmington 💍 1865/5822	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Servant	32 25	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 4 days	In Knox Church Dunedin	1504		14 January 1865	Rev. W. M. Stuart
154	16 January 1865	Alexander Henry Benson Emma Signey Benson	Alexander Henry Benson Emma Sigley 💍 1865/8771	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	32 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of the Rev. T. Burns D.D. Dunedin	1603	No person to give consent	16 January 1865	Rev. T. Burns
155	17 January 1865	Alfred Guthrie Graham Eliza Denison	Alfred Guthrie Graham Eliza Denison 💍 1865/8990	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	24 20	Dunedin Dunedin	8 yrs 4 months	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1680	No person to give consent	17 January 1865	Rev. E. G. Edwards
156	17 January 1865	Frederick Engledue Fanny Synmore Thomas	Frederick Engledue Fynmore Fanny Thomas 💍 1865/8240	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	27 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1417		17 January 1865	Registrar of Marriages
157	17 January 1865	Bernard O'Neil Ann Gilday	Bernard O'Neil Ann Gilday 💍 1865/8327	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	25 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 weeks	In St. Joseph's Chapel Dunedin	1444		17 January 1865	Rev. H. Moreau
158	17 January 1865	Hugh Baird Ellen Matilda Williams	Hugh Baird Ellen Matilda Williams 💍 1865/8075	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	37 25	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 1 yr	In the house of Hugh Baird, Drew Street Dunedin	1357		17 January 1865	Rev. R. Connebee

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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).