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 410

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
64	13 February 1865	Allan Broad Margaret Berr	Allan Broad Margaret Kerr 💍 1865/8531	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	24 19	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of Mrs Berr George Street Dunedin	1518	Sillers Berr, mother	13 February 1865	Rev. D. M. Stuart
65	15 February 1865	John McBarthy Margaret Malony	John McCarthy Margaret Maloney 💍 1865/8357 John Barry Margaret Young 💍 1865/4208 John Hally Margaret McRonald 💍 1865/8366 John McIntosh Margaret Mortar 💍 1865/4044 John Leith Margaret Hogan 💍 1865/6980	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 1 1/2 yrs	St Joseph's Presbytery house Dunedin	1454		15 February 1865	Rev. D. Moreau
66	16 February 1865	Francis Battson Joan Fidler	Francis Battson Joan Fidler 💍 1865/8930	Widower Spinster	Clerk	35 23	Dunedin Dunedin	7 yrs 18 months	In the house of Francis Battson Albany Street Dunedin	656		16 February 1865	Rev. J. Aldred
67	17 February 1865	Alexander Fraser Jessie Cameron	Alexr Fraser Jessie Cameron 💍 1865/8534	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	26 18	Dunedin Dunedin	5 weeks 1 yr	In the house of Mrs Sutherland Cumberland Street Dunedin	1519		17 February 1865	Rev. D. M. Stuart
68	18 February 1865	John Nolan Catherine Costello	John Nolan Catherine Costello 💍 1865/8360	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	24 22	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 6 months	In St Joseph's Presbytery house Dunedin	1455		18 February 1865	D. Moreau
69	21 February 1865	Samuel Haywood Matilda Philipson	Samuel Haywood Mirams Matilda Phillippa Eastgate 💍 1865/8081	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Engineer	full 19	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of the Revd Richard Connebee Eastgade Dunedin	1339	Jane Eastgate, mother	21 February 1865	Rev. R. Connebee Registrar
70	23 February 1865	Robert Julius Oneill Agathe Marianne Goldammer	Albert Julius Metz Marianne Goldammer 💍 1865/8537	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	39 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 16 months	Knox Church Dunedin	1520		23 February 1865	Rev. D. M. Stuart
71	23 February 1865	John Ashworth Hellen Brown	John Ashworth Hellen Brown 💍 1865/8549	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	29 32	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 2 yrs	Knox Church Dunedin	1524		23 February 1865	Rev. D. M. Stuart
72	23 February 1865	John Blair Jemima Gunn	John Blair Jemima Gunn 💍 1865/8546	Widower Spinster	Baker	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	5 months 5 months	In the house of Mr. Gunn Carpenter Moray Place Dunedin	1523		23 February 1865	Rev. D. M. Stuart

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).