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 474

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
172	10 August 1866	George Knight Helen Bryden Beattie	George Knight Helen Brydon Beattie 💍 1866/9310	Bachelor Spinster	Coachmaker	28 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 3 yrs.	In the house of James Whitelaw George Street Dunedin	1703		10 August 1866	Rev. D. M. Stuart
173	10 August 1866	James Wylie Mary Reid	James Wyllie Mary Reid 💍 1866/8791 James Stewart Mary Reid 💍 1867/8143	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 4 months	In the house of David Ross Maclaggan Street Dunedin	1525		10 August 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns
174	10 August 1866	John Auld Ann Miller	John Auld Ann Millar 💍 1866/8788	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	32 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 2 yrs.	In the Manse of The Rev. Thomas Burns Dunedin	1524		10 August 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns
175	11 August 1866	Thomas Jackson Coliza Wunstan Hocking	Thomas Jackson Eliza Dunstan Hocking 💍 1866/8674	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	21 21	Dunedin Dunedin	8 days 6 months	In the house of David Roberts Banongate Dunedin	1486		11 August 1866	Rev. J. Aldred
176	11 August 1866	John Bryant Charlotte Ann Smith	John Bryant Charlotte Ann Smith 💍 1866/8908	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	31 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 16 months	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1566	Mary Ann Grieves mother	11 August 1866	Rev. E. G. Edwards
177	13 August 1866	Andrew Miller Mary Montgomery	Andrew Miller Mary Montgomery 💍 1866/9316	Bachelor Spinster	Drayman	29 21	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 3 yrs	In Knox Church Dunedin	1705		13 August 1866	Rev. D. M. Stuart
178	13 August 1866	Pringle Francis Stoddart Elizabeth Eleanor Turnbull Drummond	Pringle Francis Stoddart Elizabeth Eleanor Turnbull Drummond 💍 1866/8695	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	28 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 yrs.	In the house of John McKechnie Moray Place Dunedin	1493		13 August 1866	Alfred Brunton
179	20 August 1866	Patrick Galvin Margaret O'Loughlin	Patrick Galvin Margaret O'Laughlan 💍 1866/9079	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	26 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 months	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1625		20 August 1866	Rev. J. Moreau
180	21 August 1866	George Ross Isabella McLeod	George Ross Isabella McLeod 💍 1866/9319	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 weeks	In the house of Mrs Sutherland Cumberland Street Dunedin	1706		21 August 1866	Rev. 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).