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 432

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
237	9 September 1865	Matthew Little Catherine Hoey	Matthew Little Catherine Hoey 💍 1865/8429	Bachelor Spinster	Mason	30 19	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 3 yrs	In the Presbytery house, Port Chalmers Dunedin	1479	Peter Hoey, father	9 September 1865	Rev. H. Moreau
238	11 September 1865	Philip Henry Sarah Ann Clifford	Philipp Heinz Sarah Ann Clifford 💍 1865/8864	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	24 29	Dunedin Dunedin	6 days 3 weeks	In the house of the Revd. Thomas Burns M.A.	1635		11 September 1865	Rev. Thomas Burns M.A.
239	11 September 1865	William Mathew Hodgkins Rachel Owen	William Mathew Hodgkins Rachel Owen Parker 💍 1865/8150	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	31 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 3 yrs	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1385		11 September 1865	Revd. E.G. Edwards
240	11 September 1865	Benjamin Rudder Mary Bachop	Benjamin Ruder Pledger Mary Bachop 💍 1865/8873	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 1/2 yrs 1 year	In the Manse of the Revd. Thomas Burns M.A.	1638		11 September 1865	Rev. Thomas Burns M.A.
241	11 September 1865	Adam Moder Janet Mason	Adam Meder Janet Mason 💍 1865/8315	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	23 19	Dunedin Green Island	9 months 4 yrs	In the house of David Mason Green Island	1440	MoPherson to Janet Mason consent	12 September 1865	Rev. M. Watt
242	13 September 1865	Alexander Hill Selfer Helen Murdoch	Alexander Hill Telfer Helen Murdoch 💍 1865/8867	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	29 21	Green Island Dunedin	1 year 2 months	In the house of Charles Robertson Princes street	1636		13 September 1865	Rev. Thomas Burns M.A.
243	16 September 1865	William Ryan Mary Cox	William Ryan Mary Cox 💍 1865/8432	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	26 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 months	In St. Joseph's Presbytery house Dunedin	1480		16 September 1865	Revd. D. Moreau
244	18 September 1865	Alexander Inglis Euphemia Simpson	Alexander Inglis Euphemia Simpson 💍 1865/4379	Bachelor Widow	Storekeeper	31 28	Dunedin Dunedin	25 6 yrs	In the house of Thomas Robertson			18 September 1865	Rev. James M'Naughton
245	19 September 1865	Thomas Dick Janet Shearer	Thomas Dick Janet Shearer 💍 1865/8291	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 25	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 2 weeks	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1432		19 September 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 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).