Intentions to Marry, 1866

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840378, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 454

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
1481	19 January 1866	William Henry Neale Helen Boventry	William Henry Neale Ellen Coventry 💍 1866/8659	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	32 18	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 4 yrs	In the house of John Boventry George Street Dunedin	1481	John Boventry, Father	20 January 1866	Rev. J. Aldred
1499	10 January 1866	James Gillespie Jane Auchterlonie	James Gillespie Graham Johnston Jane Auchterlonie 💍 1866/8713	Bachelor Spinster	carpenter	25 20	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 5 yrs	In the house of Mr Anderson York Place Dunedin	1499	no person to give consent	11 January 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns
1500	19 January 1866	John Turnbull Janet Park	John Turnbull Janet Park 💍 1866/8716	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	30 29	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of John Turnbull Dowling Street Dunedin	1500		19 January 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns
1501	26 January 1866	William Robb Eleanor Goodall	William Robb Eleanor Goodall 💍 1866/8719	Bachelor Spinster	mason	25 18	Dunedin Caversham	4 yrs. 16 yrs.	In the house of John Goodall Caversham	1501	John Goodall, Father	26 January 1866	Revd. Thomas Burns
1548	19 January 1866	Frederic Russell Minia Georgina Janine	Frederic Russell Nina Georgina Taine 💍 1866/8857	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	25 22	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs. 2 yrs.	In St. Paul's Church	1548		20 January 1866	Rev. G. G. Edwards
1549	16 January 1866	William Isaac Eliza Jones	William Isaac Eliza Jones 💍 1866/8854	Widower Spinster	Merchant	37 19	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 5 yrs	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1549	John Jones, Father	16 January 1866	Rev. G. G. Edwards
1598	18 January 1866	John Bradley Ann Griffen	John Bradley Ann Griffen 💍 1866/9004	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 24	Dunedin Dunedin	2 months 1 year	In St. Joseph's Presbytery house Dunedin	1598		18 January 1866	Revd. D. Moreau
1599	18 January 1866	John Ruan Mary Iday	John Ruan Mary Foley 💍 1866/9007	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	26 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 3 yrs	In St. Joseph's Presbytery house Dunedin	1599		18 January 1866	Revd. D. Moreau
1662	25 January 1866	David Hill Ann Halley	David Hill Ann Halley 💍 1866/9190	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	32 26	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 2 yrs.	In Knox Church Dunedin	1662		25 January 1866	Revd. W. M. Stuart

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).