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 467

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
111	14 May 1866	William Gayler Christina Fleming	William Taylor Christina Fleming 💍 1866/8764	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 yrs. 37 yrs.	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Manse of the Revd. Thomas Burns L.L.D., Dunedin	1576	17 May 1866	Rev'd Thomas Burns L.L.D.
112	19 May 1866	William Harrison Sarah Moore	William Harrison Sarah Moore 💍 1866/9157 William Moore Mary Moore 💍 1866/8977 William Barker Janet Moore 💍 1866/6679	Widower Spinster	Farmer	32 yrs. 19 yrs.	Dunedin Dunedin	10 weeks 18 months	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1657	25 May 1866	Rev'd Thomas Burns D.D.
113	25 May 1866	George Sutton Elizabeth Douglas	George Sutton Elizabeth Douglas 💍 1866/8767	Bachelor Widow	Seaman	32 yrs. 34 yrs.	Dunedin Dunedin	6 days 2 yrs.	the Manse of the Rev'd. Thomas Burns, D.D.	1517	25 May 1866	Rev'd Thomas Burns D.D.
114	26 May 1866	Walter Murray Margaret McKay	Walter Murray Margaret MacKay 💍 1866/9280	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	24 yrs. 28 yrs.	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 week	In Knox Church Dunedin	1692	26 May 1866	Revd. D. M. Stuart
115	26 May 1866	John Wilding Elizabeth Scott	John Wilding Elizabeth Scott 💍 1866/8896	Bachelor Spinster	Stoker	36 yrs. full	Dunedin Dunedin	4 1/2 yrs. 9 months	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1561	11 June 1866	Revd. C. G. Edwards
116	30 May 1866	Nathan Barker Matilda Fletcher	Nathan Barker Matilda Fletcher 💍 1866/8887	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	26 yrs 23 yrs	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 10 days	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1538	30 May 1866	Revd. E. G. Edwards
117	30 May 1866	John Friend Isabella McMillan	John Friend Isabella McClellan 💍 1866/9439	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 yrs. 23 yrs.	Green Island Green Island	4 yrs. 3 yrs.	In the house of James Robertson Green Island	1746	30 May 1866	Revd. Mr. Watt
118	2 June 1866	Thomas Anderson Jane Sim	Andrew Anderson Jane Gow 💍 1866/9199	Bachelor Spinster	Agriculturist	21 yrs. 21 yrs.	Portobello Portobello	10 yrs 7 yrs	In the house of Thomas Anderson Portobello		2 June 1866	Rev'd. W. Johnston
119	2 June 1866	Stephen Ellis Catherine Laing	Stephen Ellis Catherine Lang McNaughton 💍 1866/9148	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 yrs 21 yrs.	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs. 3 yrs.	In the house of Alexander McNaughton, George Street, Dunedin	1648	2 June 1866	Rev'd. J. L. Parsons

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).