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 456

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
128	5 February 1866	Michael Butter Johanna Power	Michael Butler Johanna Power 💍 1866/9016	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Joseph's Presbytery house Dunedin	1602	5 February 1866	Revd. D. Moreau
129	5 February 1866	Patrick Shelly Annie Brown	Patrick Kelly Annie Brown 💍 1866/9019	Bachelor Spinster	Publican	27 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 3 months	In St. Joseph's Presbytery house. Dunedin	1603	5 February 1866	Rev. D. Moreau
130	6 February 1866	Sinclair McBeath Flora McLaren	Sinclair McBeath Flora McLaren 💍 1866/8740	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	28 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 9 months	In the house of Mrs. Etty, York Place Dunedin	1508	6 February 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns
131	7 February 1866	Nathan Salomon Amelia Semon	Nathan Salomon Amelia Simon 💍 1866/8953	Bachelor Spinster	Jeweller	32 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 1/2 yrs 6 months	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1581	7 February 1866	Registrar of Marriages
132	7 February 1866	David Gloy Sarah Elizabeth King cott	David Gloag Sarah Elizabeth Kingcott 💍 1866/8860	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	32 24	Dunedin Dunedin	17 days 18 months	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1549	7 February 1866	Rev. G. Edwards
133	8 February 1866	John Hunter Jane Baxter	Jno Hunter Jane Baxter 💍 1866/9211	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	25 28	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of John Hunter, Castle Street Dunedin	1669	8 February 1866	Revd. D. Mc. Stuart
134	8 February 1866	Frederick Boyer Margaret Thomson	Frederick Boyer Margaret Thomson 💍 1866/8737	Bachelor Spinster	Lawyer	24 21	Dunedin Dunedin	12 months 7 yrs	In the house of George Thomson, Pine Hill	1507	8 February 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns
135	9 February 1866	John Pye Isabella Lamont	John Pye Isabella Lamont 💍 1866/8734	Bachelor Widow	Seaman	26 26	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 5 yrs	In the house of Isabella Lamont, Great King Street Dunedin	1506	9 February 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns
136	10 February 1866	William McFarland Elizabeth Ordel	William McFarland Elizabeth Ardel 💍 1866/8728	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper	35 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Manse of the Rev. Thomas Burns N.E.V. Dunedin	1504	10 February 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).