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 471

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
145	2 July 1866	Thomas Hely Elizabeth Gallon	Thomas Hely Elizabeth Gallon 💍 1866/8689	Widower Widow	Carpenter	45 35	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 week	In the Manse of the Revd. Alfred Brunton, Dunedin	1491		2 July 1866	Revd. Alfred Brunton
146	2 July 1866	Henry Crone Catherine Meylon	Henry Crone Catherine Neylon 💍 1866/9061	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	31 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 1/2 yrs 4 yrs.	St. Josephs Church, Dunedin	1618	No person to give Consent	3 July 1866	Revd. D. Moreau
147	3 July 1866	Robert Brown Eliza Brown	Robert Brown Eliza Brown 💍 1866/8779	Bachelor Spinster	Smith	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	2 1/2 yrs 2 1/2 yrs	In the house of Robert Brown, Trilleul Street Dunedin	1521		3 July 1866	Revd. Thomas Burns D.D.
148	3 July 1866	Henry White Eliza Jane Ashton	Henry White Eliza Jane Ashton 💍 1866/8671	Bachelor Spinster	Seedsman	33 20	Tokomairiro Dunedin	4 yrs. 3 yrs	In [UNCLEAR]ley, near Tokomairiro Church	1485	Elizabeth Bradshaw, Mother	3 July 1866	Revd. J. Aldred
149	7 July 1866	Robert Hastings Esther Garside	Robert Hastings Esther Garside 💍 1866/9304	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	36 30	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs. 2 yrs	In the Manse of the Revd. D.M. Stuart Dunedin	1700		9 July 1866	Revd. D.M. Stuart
150	17 July 1866	Donald McLeod Margaret Sutherland Bruce	Donald McLeod Margaret Sutherland Bruce 💍 1866/9307	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 weeks	In the house of Mrs Sutherland, Cumberland Street Dunedin	1701		17 July 1866	Revd. D. M. Stuart
151	17 July 1866	William Highet Mary Buddie	William Hylet Mary Cuddy 💍 1866/9448 William Hopkinson Mary Quaid 💍 1866/8053	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	31 24	Green Island Saddle hill	2 yrs 5 days	In the house of Thomas Buddie, Esqr. Saddle hill	1749		17 July 1866	Revd. Mr. Watt
152	19 July 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 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 1 year	In the house of Mr. Geirth, Pall Mall, off George Street, Dunedin	1657	Robert Moore, Father	19 July 1866	Revd. J. L. Parsons
153	20 July 1866	Louis Peter Peterson Margaret Raeburn	Louis Peter Peterson Margaret Raeburn 💍 1866/4258	Bachelor Spinster	Restaurant Keeper	30 18	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 5 months	In the house of the Revd. D. M. Stuart, Dunedin	1702	Helen Raburrn, Mother	20 July 1866	Revd. D. M. Stuart

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).