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 458

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
46	16 February 1866	Michael Donovan Kate Lynch	Michael Donovan Kate Lynch 💍 1866/9028 Michael Costello Jane Lynch 💍 1866/8560	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	24 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 year	In St Josephs Presbytery house Dunedin	1669		16 February 1866	Revd D Moreau
47	16 February 1866	James Broadbent Jessie Barty	James Broadbent Jessie Baily 💍 1866/8842	Bachelor Spinster	Quarryman	39 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 years	In the house of Robert Barid Filleul Street Dunedin	1543		16 February 1866	Revd R. Connebee
48	20 February 1866	Arthur Dansey Mary Murdoch	Arthur Dansey Mary Murdoch Caldwell 💍 1866/9220	Bachelor Spinster	Livery Stable Housekeeper	25 17	Damaru Dunedin	3 yrs 2 weeks	In the house of William Baldwell Pelichet Bay Dunedin	1672	William Baldwell Person to give consent	20 February 1866	Rev. D.M. Stuart
49	21 February 1866	Thomas Burton Emma Stabb	Thos Burton Emma Stall 💍 1866/9217	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 19	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 10 days	In the house of Charles Reid Arthur Street Dunedin	1691	no Person to give consent	21 February 1866	Rev. D.M. Stuart
50	26 February 1866	Robert Thomas Barlow Emma Grindley	Robert Thomas Barlow Emma Grindley 💍 1866/8866	Bachelor Spinster	Watchmaker	25 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St Pauls Church Dunedin	1551	William Grindley Father	26 February 1866	Rev. S.S. Edwards
51	26 February 1866	John Wall Ellen Uttara	John Wall Ellen O'Hara 💍 1866/9031	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	26 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 7 days	In St Josephs Presbytery house Dunedin	1608		26 February 1866	Revd. D. Moreau
52	28 February 1866	John Robert Browne Mary Phillingford	John Robert Browne Mary Shillingford 💍 1866/8662	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	25 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of James Kelly George Street Dunedin	1482		28 February 1866	Rev. J. Aldred
53	2 March 1866	James Bruce Catherine Gordon	James Bruce Catherine Gordon McKay 💍 1866/9223	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	30 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 month	In the Exhibition Hotel Great King Street Dunedin	1693		2 March 1866	Rev. D.M. Stuart
54	7 March 1866	Robert Symons Hickling Elizabeth Miller	Robert Symon Hickling Elizabeth Miller 💍 1866/8743	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	30 24	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 6 months	In the house of Mr Payne London Street Dunedin	1509		7 March 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 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).