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 481

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
232	22 October 1866	Thomas Quayle Margaret Henderson	Thomas Quayle Margaret Henderson 💍 1866/9499	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	46 32	Blueskin Block 7 Port Chalmers District	4 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of Margaret Henderson Block 7 Port Chalmers District	1767		22 October 1866	Rev.d William Johnston
233	23 October 1866	Patrick Lyons Bridget Dwyer	Patrick Lyons Bridget Dwyer 💍 1866/9112	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	30 22	Dunedin Dunedin	6 weeks 9 months	In St Joseph's church Dunedin	1636		23 October 1866	Rev.d J. Moreau
234	25 October 1866	Thomas Nicholos Mary Maria Scully	Thomas Nicholas Mary Maria Scully 💍 1866/9109	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	32 25	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 2 yrs	In St Joseph's Church Dunedin	1635		25 October 1866	Rev.d W. Moreau
235	25 October 1866	Archibald Mercer Janet Wudgeon	Archibald Mercer Janet Dudgeon 💍 1866/8827	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	42 34	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 2 weeks	In the house of David Robertson Russell Street Dunedin	1538		25 October 1866	Rev.d Thomas Burns D.D.
236	26 October 1866	Peter Peterson Helen Gillespie Campbell Wilson	Peter Peterson Helen Gillespie Campbell Wilson 💍 1866/9361	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 15	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 4 yrs	In the house of John Campbell Wilson Elm Row Dunedin	1720	John Campbell Wilson Father	26 October 1866	Rev.d D. M. Stuart
237	26 October 1866	Robert Roger Mary Ann Milligan	Robert Roger Mary Ann Milligan 💍 1866/8833	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	28 21	North East Harbor Dunedin	6 yrs 3 months	In the house of Charles Smith Bargill Street Dunedin	1540		26 October 1866	Rev.d Thomas Burns D.D.
238	27 October 1866	Robert Black Jane Gardner	Robert Black Jane Gardner 💍 1866/8824	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	34 32	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 week	In the house of James Black London Street Dunedin	1537		27 October 1866	Rev.d Thomas Burns D.D.
239	27 October 1866	George Freeman Eliza Taylor	George Freeman Eliza Taylor 💍 1866/8830	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	26 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 9 months	In the Manse of the Rev.d Thomas Burns D.D. Dunedin	1539	No Person to give Consent	27 October 1866	Rev.d Thomas Burns D.D.
240	29 October 1866	James Green Martha Hammond		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 27	Blueskin North East Valley	3 yrs 2 months	In the Junction Hotel Port Chalmers road			29 October 1866	Rev.d J. Quilty

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).