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 428

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
202	22 July 1865	Charles McArthur Hughina McLeod	Charles McArthur Hughina McLeod 💍 1865/8852	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 4 yrs	In the house of Mr Maysmith York Place Dunedin	1031		22 July 1865	Rev. Thomas Burns
203	22 July 1865	Adam Nichol Lillias Buchanan	Adam Nichol Lillias Buchanan 💍 1865/4238	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	32 24	Andersons Bay Andersons Bay	2 yrs 1 week	In the house of James Lothian Hawthorn Bank Andersons Bay	1258		22 July 1865	Rev. J. M. Allan
204	22 July 1865	Francis Henry Townsend Jane Anna McLeod	Francis Henry Townsend Jane Ann McLeese 💍 1865/8135	Bachelor Spinster	Dairyman	24 23	Caversham Caversham	2 yrs 2 yrs	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1380		22 July 1865	Rev. D. C. G. Edwards
205	24 July 1865	Thomas M Gann Matilda Browe	Thomas McGann Matilda Crowe 💍 1865/8681	Bachelor Spinster	Policeman	26 25	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 1 week	In Knox Church Dunedin	1572		24 July 1865	Rev. W. M. Stuart
206	24 July 1865	John Bell Thomson Sarah Black	John Bell Thomson Sarah Black 💍 1865/8849	Bachelor Spinster	Timber Merchant	40 25	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of James Black London Street Dunedin	1630		24 July 1865	Rev. Thomas Burns
207	25 July 1865	Edward Benjamin Ravenhall Julia Burns	Edward Benjamin Ravenhall Julia Burns 💍 1865/8138	Bachelor Spinster	Dealer	22 20	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 1 year	St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1381	No person to give consent	25 July 1865	Rev. D. C. G. Edwards
208	29 July 1865	Christopher Woodney Mary Ann Dallas	Christopher Woodney Mary Ann Dallas 💍 1865/8141	Bachelor Spinster	Housekeeper	38 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1382		29 July 1865	Rev. E. H. Granger
209	31 July 1865	Robert Henry Barry Jane Maria Warnock	Robert Henry Bailey Jane Maria Warnock 💍 1865/8096 Robert Henry Bailey Jane Maria Warnock 💍 1865/4229	Bachelor Spinster	Watch Maker	28 18	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 9 months	In the Manse of the Rev. R. Connebee Dunedin		No person to give consent	31 July 1865	Rev. R. Connebee
210	31 July 1865	Henry Breck Hannah Logan	Henry Beck Hannah Logan 💍 1865/3956	Widower Spinster	Settler	52	Peninsula Dunedin	18 months 2 yrs	In the Wesleyan Church Dunedin	1664		31 July 1865	Rev. J. Aldred

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).