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 477

District of Dunstan Quarter ending Jan - Apr

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
153	19 January 1865	John Anderson Low Fanny Clayton Smith		Bachelor Spinster	Runholder	29 23	Galloway Station Maniototo Plain	5 yrs 12 mo	Pateorou Station	1682		13 January 1865	Rod. & Edwards
154	19 July 1865	Peter Calder Isabella Mather	Peter Calder Isabella Myhea 💍 1865/9292 Peter Calder Esther Sinclair 💍 1865/8795	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	26 22	Alexandra Alexandra	2 1/2 yrs 18 mo	Registrar's Office	1786		19 January 1865	Henry Shalford
155	25 January 1865	John Wilson Janet Reid	John Wilson Mary Reid 💍 1865/9598 John McKeen Jane Reid 💍 1865/8828	Bachelor Spinster	Houghman	25 18	Cromwell Kawarau Gorge	4 mo 18 mo	Junction Hotel	1743	To whom notice was given 23rd Jany. Revd. Patrick Dunning to obtain consent	23 January 1865	Revd. Patrick Dunning
156	23rd Jany	George Law Anna Emanuel	George Lewson Anna Emanuel 💍 1865/9289	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 23	Cromwell Cromwell	2 yrs 7wks	Registrar's Office	1785		23 January 1865	Henry Shalford
157	28 Jany	John Nelson Kain Eliza McGeary		Bachelor Spinster	Mason	28 22	Raggedy Ridge Raggedy Ridge	5 mo 7 mo	Registrar's Office	1788		28 January 1865	Henry Shalford
158	18th Feb	William Clements Eleanor Swais	William Clements Mary Eleanor Evans 💍 1865/9295	Bachelor Spinster	Stationman	31 25	Junction Dunstan	3 days 7 days	Registrar's Office	1787		18 February 1865	Henry Shalford
159	17 Feb	Thomas Harmour Bridget Aickward	Thomas Hammond Bridget Selwood 💍 1865/9277	Bachelor Widow	Storekeeper	35 28	Teviot Junction Teviot Junction	2 yrs 6 mo	Private residence of John Aickward	1781		17 February 1865	Rev. James Milne
160	20 Feb	Patrik Bourke Ann Fenicane	Patrick Bourke Honora Ann Finnigan 💍 1865/6950	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	28 22	Cromwell Cromwell	7 mo 2 mo	Residence			20 Feb	Rev. Patrick Dunning
161	2 March	Robert Lett Margarat Jane Terrace	Robert Lett Margaret Jane Torrence 💍 1865/9301	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 28	Alexandra Alexandra	3 yrs 2 yrs	Registrar's Office	1789		2 March	Henry Shalford

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).