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 418

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
119	18 April 1865	Robert Woodburn Elizabeth Stewart	Robert Woodman Elizabeth Stewart 💍 1865/8600	Bachelor Spinster	Dairyman	24 23	Maikorai Dunedin	6 months 8 months	In the house of John Reid Grant Street Dunedin	1542		18 April 1865	Rev. D. M. Stuart
120	18 April 1865	Henry Lawrence Meenan Margaret Ferguson	Henry Laurence Keenan Margaret Ferguson 💍 1865/8594	Bachelor Spinster	Stockman	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of John Menzies George Street Dunedin	1540		18 April 1865	Rev. W. M. Stuart
121	19 April 1865	Peter Walsh Bridget Hannan	Peter Walsh Bridget Hannan 💍 1865/8378	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman	28 22	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 days	In St Josephs Presbytery house Dunedin	1401		19 April 1865	Rev. D. Moreau
122	20 April 1865	Patrick Hanly Catherine Holloren	Patrick Hanley Catherine Halloren 💍 1865/8384 Patrick Madden Catherine Keyly 💍 1865/7576	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 21	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 2 yrs	In St. Josephs Presbytery house Dunedin	1463		20 April 1865	Revd. D. Moreau
123	22 April 1865	Robert Paul Mary Paterson	Robert Paul Mary Paterson 💍 1865/8597	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	20 23	Tokomairiro Dunedin	15 months 4 months	In the manse of the Tokomairiro Jane Paul Revd. D. M. Stuart Dunedin	1541	Jane Paul mother	22 April 1865	Rev. D. M. Stuart
124	24 April 1865	Hance Wilson Fanny Lydia Scott	Hance Wilson Fanny Lydia Scott 💍 1865/9655	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	25 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 1/2 yrs 2 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of marriages Dunedin	1422		24 April 1865	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
125	27 April 1865	John How Gray Ellen Wells	Jno Shaw Gray Ellen Wells 💍 1865/8603	Bachelor Widow	Timber merchants	38 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 1 1/2 yrs	In the house of John How Gray London Street Dunedin	1543		27 April 1865	Rev. D. M. Stuart
126	29 April 1865	George Yamm Marguerete Highland	George Yaman Margaret Highland 💍 1865/8387	Bachelor Spinster	Cabman	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	5 months 5 months	St. Joseph Presbytery house Dunedin	1464		29 April 1865	Rev. D. Moreau
127	29 April 1865	Peter Mark Catherine Sutherland	Peter Mark Catherine Sutherland 💍 1865/8267	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Servant	32 22	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 6 months	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1424		29 April 1865	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).