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 472

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
154	23 July 1866	Hugh Clarke Jessie Mcbrae	Hugh Clarke Jessie McCrae 💍 1866/9490	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	27 20	Dunedin Blueskin	8 days 1 year	In the house of Duncan Mcbrae Blueskin	1764	Duncan Mcbroe, Father	23 July 1866	Revd. W. Johnston
155	25 July 1866	Henry Smith Mary Serimyoune	Henry Smith Mary Scrymegour 💍 1866/8782	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	26 29	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Manse of the Revd. Thomas Burns. D.D. Dunedin	1522		25 July 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns
156	25 July 1866	Patrick Ryan Bridget Hayes	Patrick Ryan Bridget Hayes 💍 1866/9064	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	28 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Josephs Church Dunedin	1619	Person to give Consent	25 July 1866	Revd. H. Moreau
157	26 July 1866	Thomas Lynda Bridget Traunor	Thomas Lynch Bridget Treinor 💍 1866/9067 Thomas Pawell Bridget Teirney 💍 1866/8590	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 23	Dunedin Dunedin	8 days 3 months	In St. Josephs Church Dunedin	1620		26 July 1866	Revd. H. Moreau
158	1 August 1866	Dennis Roughan Bridget Dayce	Dennis Roughan Bridget Joyce 💍 1866/9070	Bachelor Spinster	farmer	35 24	Tuapeka Dunedin	2 yrs 3 days	In St. Josephs Church Dunedin	1621	Tuapeka District	1 August 1866	Rev. D. Moreau
159	1 August 1866	John Reid Elezabeth [UNCLEAR]	John Reid Elizabeth Scrymgour 💍 1866/8971 John Reid Janet Horn 💍 1866/9544	Bachelor Widow	Printer	42 40	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 4 yrs.	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1589		1 August 1866	Registrar of Marriages
160	2 August 1866	James Sly Annie Elizabeth Atkinson		Widower Spinster	Storekeeper	50 27	Caversham Dunedin	2 yrs 4 months	In the house of James Sly Caversham	1623		2 August 1866	Revd. D. M. Stewart
161	3 August 1866	Thomas Dickson Agnes Dalziel	Thomas Dickson Agnes Dalziell 💍 1866/8785	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker	23 23	Dunedin Wakari	9 yrs. 11 yrs.	In the house of Andrew Dalziel Wakari.	1523		3 August 1866	Rev. Dr. Thomas Burns
162	4 August 1866	James Butter Mary Ballanan	James Cutler Mary Callannan 💍 1866/4336 James Baxter Mary Barr 💍 1866/8839 James Watt Mary Meban 💍 1866/6109	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	30 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Josephs Church Dunedin	1622		4 August 1866	Revd. H. 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).