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 460

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
64	22 March 1866	Thomas Beveridge Jessie James	Thos Beveridge Jessie James 💍 1866/9229 Thomas Gray Jessie James 💍 1866/5512	Widower Spinster	Tailor	45 31	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 1 week	In the house of John Morrison London Street Dunedin	1675		22 March 1866	Rev. W. M. Stuart
65	22 March 1866	Joseph Salvin Robena Midean	Jos Salvin Robina McLean 💍 1866/9262	Widower Widow	Laborer	60 33	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 5 yrs	In the house of Patrick Hemins Hanover Street Dunedin	1686		22 March 1866	Rev. W. M. Stuart
66	26 March 1866	Joseph White Mary Pountney	Joseph White Mary Pountney 💍 1866/9484	Bachelor Spinster	Brickmaker	19 19	Andersons Bay Andersons Bay	3 yrs 18 months	In the office of the Registrar of marriages Dunedin	1702			Registrar of Marriages
67	27 March 1866	James Redwood Margaret Collie	James Thomas Richards Margaret Collie 💍 1866/8956	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	36 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the office of the Registrar of marriages Dunedin	1582		27 March 1866	Registrar of marriages
68	29 March 1866	George Harris Mary Sinclair	George Harris May Sinclair 💍 1866/8875	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 18	Portobello Portobello	2 yrs 6 yrs	In St. Pauls Church Dunedin	1554	Alexander Sinclair, Father	27 March 1866	Rev. E. G. Edwards
69	27 March 1866	John Box Margaret Muir	John Ashworth Margaret Hair 💍 1866/9990 John Dunne Margaret Mixner 💍 1866/9937 John Noble Margaret McTaggart 💍 1866/9856 John Brady Margaret Harvey 💍 1866/5467	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	21 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 2 yrs	In St. Pauls Church Dunedin			27 March 1866	Rev. E. G. Edwards
70	28 March 1866	James Loudon Elizabeth Wilson	James Louden Elizabeth Wilson 💍 1866/9430	Bachelor Spinster	Wood Proprietor	27 19	Green Island Green Island	3 yrs 1 year	In the house of Andrew Pollock Green Island	1743	Permission to give consent	28 March 1866	Rev. M. Watt
71	29 March 1866	John Thomson Emily Jane Oliver	John Thomson Emily Jane Oliver 💍 1866/9241	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	28 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 3 yrs	In Knox Church Dunedin	1679		29 March 1866	Rev. W. M. Stuart
72	29 March 1866	David Griffith Jones Jane Estill	David Griffith Jones Jane Estill 💍 1866/8848	Widower Widow	Mariner	39 41	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 2½ yrs	In Milton Hall Stuart Street Dunedin	1545		29 March 1866	Rev. R. Connebee

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).