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 473

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
163	4 August 1866	Alexander Moore Ann Smith	Alexander Moore Ann Smith 💍 1866/9073 Charles Goodfellow Ann Smith 💍 1866/8470	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	42 34	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 3 yrs	In St Joseph's Church Dunedin	1623		4 August 1866	Revd. H. Moreau
164	6 August 1866	Matthew Pope Helen Ann Langly	Matthew Pope Hellen Ann Langley Ford 💍 1866/8902	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 days	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1564		6 August 1866	Rev. E. G. Edwards
165	6 August 1866	Alfred Haddock Sarah Ann Tyler	Alfred Haddock Sarah Ann Tyler 💍 1866/8974	Bachelor Widow	Plumber	32 32	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1588		6 August 1866	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
166	6 August 1866	Stewart Richard Angelo Mary Steele	Stewart Richard Angelo Mary Steele 💍 1866/9160	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 22	Dunedin Wakari	2 weeks 3 yrs.	In the house of Robert Steele Kaikorai Valley	1652		6 August 1866	Rev. J. L. Parsons
167	7 August 1866	Walter Lopie Emily Matilda Morison	Walter Logie Emily Matilda Morison 💍 1866/8905	Bachelor Spinster	Bank Clerk	22 18	Dunedin Dunedin	13 yrs 4 1/2 yrs	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1565	William Morison Father	7 August 1866	Revd. E. G. Edwards
168	7 August 1866	James Lynch Honora McArty	James Lynch Honora McCarthy 💍 1866/9076	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	21 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 1/2 yrs 1/2 yrs	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1624	No Person to give consent	7 August 1866	Rev. H. Moreau
169	7 August 1866	James John Pryor Isabella Nicol	James Jno Pryor Isabella Nicol 💍 1866/9313	Bachelor Spinster	Seedsman	26 16	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs. 9 yrs.	In the house of David Nicol William Street Dunedin	1704	David Nicol Father	7 August 1866	Rev. D. M. Stuart
170	9 August 1866	Thomas Meng Mary McGowan	Thomas King Mary McGowan 💍 1866/6427	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	32 24	Green Island Hutt Valley Wellington	6 months 8 months	In the house of the Rev. Wm. McGowan Hutt Valley Wellington	700		9 August 1866	Rev. Wm. McGowan of the Hutt Wellington
171	9 August 1866	Thomas Benson Catherine Thomson	Thomas Benson Catherine Thomson 💍 1866/8794	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	27 18	Pine Hill Pine Hill	3 yrs 7 yrs	In the house of George Thomson Pine Hill	1526	George Thomson Father	9 August 1866	Revd. Thomas Burns

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).