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 465

District of Dunedin 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
93	23 April 1866	John Walsh Elizabeth Sarah Wilkinson	John Walsh Elizabeth Sarah Wilkinson 💍 1866/9040	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	30 24	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 3 yrs	St Josephs Church	1611	23rd April 1866	Rev. D. Moreau
94	24 April 1866	Donald McDonald Charlotte Murrays	Donald McDonald Charlotte Murray 💍 1866/9265	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	31 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 yrs	In the house of Mrs Sutherland Cumberland Street Dunedin	1687	25th April 1866	Rev. W. M. Stuart
95	26 April 1866	William Jones Mary Ann Hutton	William McInnes Mary Anne Hutton 💍 1866/9631	Bachelor Spinster	Cooper	32 21	Port Chalmers Dunedin	3 yrs 8 months	In the house of Robert Swan York Place Dunedin	1814	26th April 1866	Rev. J. M. Davidson
96	26 April 1866	Edmund Smith Catherine Bowen	Edmund Smith Catherine Cowen 💍 1866/8959	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	45 33	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1583	26th April 1866	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
97	26 April 1866	Albert Hanson Catherine Melly	Albert Hansen Catherine Kelly 💍 1866/8884	Bachelor Widow	Clerk	32 40	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3 yrs	In St Pauls Church Dunedin	1557	26th April 1866	Rev. E. G. Edwards
98	30 April 1866	John Warden Isabella Stewart	Jno Warden Isabella Stewart 💍 1866/9271	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	29 28	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 4 yrs	In Knox Church Dunedin	1689	30th April 1866	Rev. D. M. Stuart
99	30 April 1866	William Ruskin Mary Ann Morley	William Buskin Mary Ann Morley 💍 1866/8938	Widower Spinster	Carpenter	43 38	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 1 year	In All Saints Church Dunedin	1576	30th April 1866	Rev. E. G. Edwards
100	30 April 1866	Walter Falla Mary Wilkie	Walter Falla Mary Wilkie 💍 1866/8962	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	39 40	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 3 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1584	30th April 1866	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
101	2 May 1866	Dennis Ryall Jane Dyer	Dennis Ryall Jane Dwyer 💍 1866/9043	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	26 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St Josephs Church Dunedin	1612	2 May 1866	Rev. D. Moreau

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).