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 479

District of Dunstan 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
154	4 May 1865	David Walsh Margaret Fenley		Bachelor Spinster	Miner	35 30	Ernsleugh Station Manorburn	2 yrs 2 yrs	Bendigo Hotel, Alexandra		4 May 1865	Rev.d Patk. Duffy
155	4 May 1865	Edward McQuillan Catherine Murray	Edward McQuillan Catherine Murray 💍 1865/9181	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	25 17	Sandy Point Clyde	18 mos 8 mos	Victoria Hotel, Clyde	1748	11 May 1865	Rev.d Patk Duffy
156	23 May 1865	Henry Symberg Jeannette Sarah King	Henry Symberg Jeanette Sarah King 💍 1865/9307	Bachelor Spinster	Camp Messman	28 23	Clyde Clyde	2 1/2 yrs 7 mos	Registrars Office	1791	23 May 1865	Henry Shalford
157	24 May 1865	Patrick Crawford Ann McGowan	Patrick Crawford Ann McGowan 💍 1865/9310	Bachelor Spinster	Moulder	31 28	Clyde Clyde	2 1/2 yrs 28 mos	Registrars Office	1792	29 May 1865	Henry Shalford
158	3 June 1865	William Marshall Mary Colville	William Marshall Mary Colville 💍 1865/9313	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	29 35	Lake Hayes Arrow	2 1/2 yrs 2 yrs	Registration Office	1794	3 June 1865	Henry Shalford
159	5 June 1865	William Dunn Jane Ella Keene	William Dunn Jane Ella Keene 💍 1865/9316	Bachelor Spinster	Slaughterman	34 21	Clyde Clyde	4 yrs 2 1/2 yrs	Registrars Office	1795	5 June 1865	Henry Shalford
160	9 June 1865	Joseph Tamblyn Ellen Reader	Joseph Tamblyn Ellen Reader 💍 1865/9319	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 21	Teviot Junction Teviot Junction	12 mos 7 mos	Registrars Office	1796	9 June 1865	Henry Shalford
161	12 June 1865	Joseph Caher Caroline Maughan Carmathin	Joseph McCabe Caroline Maughan Carruthers 💍 1865/9322	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	24 19	Blacks Diggings Blacks diggings	2 yrs 6 mos	Registrars Office	1797	12 June 1865	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 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).