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 442

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
315	21 December 1865	Robert deishman Sarah braig	Robert Leishman Sarah Craig 💍 1865/8759	Bachelor Spinster	letter	27 21	Wakari Dunedin	2 yrs 1 year	In Knox church Dunedin	1599		21 December 1865	Revd. W. M. Stuart
316	21 December 1865	Edward Fitzmaurice Olivia Pincer	Edward Fitzmaurice Olivia Simcoe 💍 1865/8753	Widower Widow	Draper	35 29	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 4 yrs	In the house of Olivia Simcoe Bambray Place Dunedin	1597		21 December 1865	Rev. W. M. Stuart
317	23 December 1865	Edward John Filewood Ellen Hyland	Edward Jno Filewood Ellen Hyland 💍 1865/8750	Bachelor Spinster	Mounted orderly in the botonial Troops	24 20	Dunedin Dunedin	13 days 1 year	In Knox church	1596	No person to give consent	23 December 1865	Rev. W. M. Stuart
318	26 December 1865	John Wrummond Ann Isabella Mac		Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	37 27	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 4 days	In the house of Thomas Birch Moray Place Dunedin	1598		26 December 1865	Revd. W. M. Stuart
319	27 December 1865	Robert Tuck Helen Alexander	Robert Jack Helen Alexander 💍 1866/9172	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	27 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of David Stewart Manor Place Dunedin	656		27 December 1865	Revd. W. M. Stuart
320	27 December 1865	Henry Farquharson Jane Hay	Henry Farquharson Begg Jane Hay 💍 1865/8297	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 2 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of marriages Dunedin	1434		27 December 1865	Registrar of Marriages
321	27 December 1865	John Black Janet McGregor	John Black Janet McGregor 💍 1866/8707	Bachelor Spinster	miner	30 20	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 3 yrs	In the house of John Black Frederick Street Dunedin	1499	No person to give consent	27 December 1865	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
322	28 December 1865	James Tyrrell Jane Morrison	James Tyrrell Jane Morrison 💍 1865/8180 James Rodger Agnes Morrison 💍 1865/8579	Widower Spinster	Tinsmith	29 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 15 months	In St. Pauls Church Dunedin	1396		28 December 1865	Rev. E. G. Edwards
323	29 December 1865	Charles French Ann Eliza Mackay	Charles French Ann Eliza MacKay 💍 1865/8183	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	40 31	Dunedin Dunedin	12 yrs 25 yrs	In St. Pauls Church Dunedin	1399		29 December 1865	Rev. 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 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).