Intentions to Marry, 1867

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840379, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 520

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jan - Mar

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
9	11 January 1867	George Sudemann Lydia Boullie	George Ludeman Lydia Baillie 💍 1867/9334	Widower Widow	Miner	36 25	Dunedin Dunedin	8 days 6 yrs	In the office of the Register of marriages Dunedin	1703	11 January 1867	Registrar of Marriages
10	14 January 1867	Thomas Rainforth Emma Beekingsale	Thomas Rainforth Emma Beckingsale 💍 1867/9052	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	33 26	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 4 yrs	In the house of Henry Beekingsale George Street Dunedin	1600	14 January 1867	Rev'd J.L. Parsons
11	14 January 1867	George Green Hannah Chamberlain	George Green Hannah Chamberlain 💍 1867/9055	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	24 26	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 1 year	In the Baptist church Dunedin	1697	14 January 1867	Rev'd J.L. Parsons
12	16 January 1867	Martin Sullivan Mary Neilan	Martin Sullivan Mary Naylor 💍 1867/9226	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 21	Wakari Dunedin	1 week 10 days	In St. Joseph's church Dunedin	1714	16 January 1867	Rev'd D. Moreau
13	16 January 1867	John Reay Elizabeth Falconer	John Reay Elizabeth Falconer 💍 1867/8896	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	27 24	Wakari Wakari	5 yrs 6 months	In the house of Archibald Wilson Ross. Roslyn	554	16 January 1867	Dr. Thomas Burns
14	17 January 1867	George Leslie Elizabeth Wallace	George Leslie Elizabeth Wallace 💍 1867/9445	Bachelor Spinster	Warehouseman	25 24	Dunedin Dunedin	22 yrs 3 days	In Lerington house. Colmurous Dunedin	1741	17 January 1867	Rev'd D. M. Stuart
15	18 January 1867	Patrick O'Donnell Honora McCarthy	Patrick O'Donnell Honora McCarthy 💍 1867/9229	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Joseph's church Dunedin	1060	18 January 1867	Rev'd D. Moreau
16	18 January 1867	William Darg Elizabeth Duff	Wm Doig Elizabeth Duff 💍 1867/9430	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	26 21	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 3 days	In Knox church Dunedin	1796	18 January 1867	Rev'd D. M. Stuart
17	18 January 1867	Thomas Reid Christina McMullan	Thos Reid Christina McMillan 💍 1867/9433	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 2 yrs	In Knox church Dunedin	1734	18 January 1867	Rev'd 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).