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 476

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
190	30 August 1866	Robert Allan Jane Millar	Robert Allan Jane Miller 💍 1866/9163	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	23 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 yrs	In the house of James Kelgour Roslyn	1653		30 August 1866	Revd. I.S. Parsons
191	30 August 1866	Thomas Lambeth Mary Ann Duckhurst	Thomas Lambeth Mary Ann Luckhurst 💍 1866/8692	Bachelor Spinster	Builder	28 18	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 4 yrs	In the house of Henry Duckhurst Dowling Street	1492	Henry Duckhurst Father	30 August 1866	Rev. Alfred Brunton
192	31 August 1866	William Moore Mary Moore	William Moore Mary Moore 💍 1866/8977 William Harrison Sarah Moore 💍 1866/9157 William Barker Janet Moore 💍 1866/6679	Bachelor Widow	Miner	29 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1589		31 August 1866	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
193	1 September 1866	Joseph Scarambole Fanny North	Joseph Scarambolle Fanny North 💍 1866/8797	Bachelor Spinster	Fisherman	29 21	Dunedin Portobello	5 months 10 days	In the Manse of the Rev. Thomas Burns Dunedin	1528		1 September 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns
194	3 September 1866	Piter Tielle Mary Ann Brown	Peter Tielle Mary Ann Brown 💍 1866/9088	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	27 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 1/2 yrs	In St Joseph's Church Dunedin	1628		3 September 1866	Rev. D. Moreau
195	4 September 1866	James Bohland Sarah Rutherford Anderson	James Copland Kate Rutherford Anderson 💍 1866/9325	Bachelor Spinster	Minister of the Gospel	32 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 yrs	In the house of the Rev. Peter Anderson Cumberland Street Dunedin	1708	Rev. Peter Anderson g.g. Father	4 September 1866	Rev. W.M. Stuart
196	5 September 1866	Henry Schrick Bridget Doyle	Henry Schrick Bridget Doyle 💍 1866/9091	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	29 24	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 week	In St Joseph's Church Dunedin	1629		5 September 1866	Rev. D. Moreau
197	5 September 1866	Patrick Long Bridgit Maher	Patrick Long Bridget Maher 💍 1866/9094	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	30 26	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 2 1/2 yrs	In St Joseph's Church Dunedin	1630		5 September 1866	Rev. D. Moreau
198	11 September 1866	Robert Gillies Emily Street	Robert Gillies Emily Street 💍 1866/9328	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	31 18	Dunedin Dunedin	13 years 12 years	In the house of Charles Henry Street - Park Street Dunedin	1709	Charles Henry Street, Father	11 September 1866	Rev. W. 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).