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 419

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
128	24 April 1865	David Whittet Mary Belfield	David Whittet Mary Belfield 💍 1865/8816	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	30 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs. 18 months	In the house of David Whittet St. Dunedin	1619		29 April 1865	Rev. Thomas Burns W.W.
129	4 May 1865	George Friend Ann Cunningham	George Friend Ann Cummingham 💍 1865/8312	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	29 20	Green Island Green Island	18 months 3 months	In the house of James Robertson Green Island	1439	no person to give consent	4 May 1865	Revd. Mr. Watt
130	4 May 1865	William Nicol Isabella Henderson	William Nicol Isabella Henderson 💍 1865/8201	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 22	Caversham Caversham	5 yrs. 3 yrs	In the house of David McGregor Caversham	1403		4 May 1865	Revd. W.Meiklejohn
131	8 May 1865	John Campbell Martha Orr	Jno Campbell Martha Orr 💍 1865/8606	Bachelor Spinster	Overseer on Station	27 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church Dunedin	1544	Agnes Orr mother	8 May 1865	Revd. W. M. Stuart
132	10 May 1865	John Jones Elizabeth Walker	John Jones Elizabeth Walker 💍 1865/8264	Bachelor Spinster	Publican	32 30	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 6 months	In the office of the Registrar of marriages Dunedin	1423		10 May 1865	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
133	11 May 1865	John Quinn Satitia Ditchison	Jno Quinn Latitia Aitchison 💍 1865/8609	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	25 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 yrs.	In Knox Church Dunedin	1545		11 May 1865	Revd. D. M. Stuart
134	11 May 1865	Samuel Burt Biss Sarah Jane Jones	Samuel Birt Biss Sarah Jane Jones 💍 1865/8612	Bachelor Spinster	Shop Clerk Post Office	21 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs. 3 days	In the house of Mr. Archibald Barr London Street Dunedin	1340	Sarah [UNCLEAR] mother	11 May 1865	Revd. W. M. Stuart
135	16 May 1865	Edward Harris Ellen Elizabeth Vaughan	Edward Harris Ellen Elizabeth Vaughan 💍 1865/6527	Bachelor Spinster	Journalist	23 18	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 3 yrs.	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1374	no person to give Consent	16 May 1865	Revd. E. G. Edwards
136	19 May 1865	Thomas Dickson Margaret Atkinson	Thomas Dickson Margaret Atkinson 💍 1865/4153	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	22 21	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 week	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1373		19 May 1865	Revd. E. G. Edwards

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).