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 479

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
214	2 October 1866	Duncan Taylor Jessie McDavid	Duncan Taylor Jessie McDavid 💍 1866/9343	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 23	Peninsula Dunedin	15 months 2 yrs.	In the house of Thomas Esplin Cumberland Street Dunedin	1714		2 October 1866	Revd. D. M. Stuart
215	2 October 1866	Samuel Wand Amelia Pullar	Samuel Ward Amelia Pullor 💍 1866/9166	Bachelor Spinster	Gas Fitter	26 19	Dunedin Dunedin	4 1/2 yrs 2 yrs	In the House of Samuel Wand George Street Dunedin	1654	Jessie Pullar Mother	2 October 1866	Rev. J. C. Parsons
216	2 October 1866	Shippard Jeffares Reeves Henrietta Smyth	Sheppard Jeffares Reeves Henrietta Smythe Raymond 💍 1866/8920	Bachelor Spinster	manufacturer	32 18	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs. 1/2 yrs.	In St. Pauls Church Dunedin	1590	No Person to give Consent	2 October 1866	Revd. E. G. Edwards
217	2 October 1866	James Ricardo Stephens Theodocia Britton	James Ricardo Stephens Theodosia Britton 💍 1866/8941	Bachelor Spinster	accountant	35 18	Dunedin Nelson	3 1/2 yrs 1 year	In the house of Mrs. E. Smith Rattray Street Dunedin	1577		12 October 1866	Rev. D. M. Stuart
218	3 October 1866	John Kinnear McDonald Kate Gray Short	John Kinnear McDonald Kate Gray Short 💍 1866/9346	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 21	Dunedin Pine hill	3 days 17 yrs	In the house of Robert Short Pine hill	1715		3 October 1866	Revd. D. M. Stuart
219	6 October 1866	Frederick Henry Marriott Helen Aitken	Fredrick Henry Marriott Helen Aitken 💍 1866/9352	Bachelor Spinster	Musician	26 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 6 months	In Knox church Dunedin	1717		6 October 1866	Rev. D. M. Stuart
220	6 October 1866	James William Parsons Mary Ann Stains	James William Parsons Mary Anne Staines 💍 1866/8806	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	39 40	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 9 months	In the house of James W. Parsons George Street Dunedin	1531		6 October 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
221	6 October 1866	John Freeland Isabella Booth	John Freeland Isabella Booth 💍 1866/9355	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	24 26	Dunedin Dunedin	2 months 2 months	In the house of William Wakenshaw Great King Street Dunedin	1718		6 October 1866	Revd. D. M. Stuart
222	9 October 1866	John Stewart Isabella Jenkins	John Stewart Isabella Jenkins 💍 1866/8809	Widower Spinster	Laborer	35 30	Dunedin Dunedin	5 months 3 yrs.	In the Manse of The Rev. Thomas Burns D.D. Dunedin	1532		9 October 1866	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.

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).