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 522

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
26	23 January 1867	William Finch Hannah Taylor	William Finck Hannah Taylor 💍 1867/9103	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	31 21	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 1 month	In St. Pauls Church Dunedin	1623		23 January 1867	Revd C. S. Edwards
27	24 January 1867	Robert Aitken Christina Stewart	Robert Aitken Christina Stewart McNiven 💍 1867/8908	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	33 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the manse of The Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.	1558		24 January 1867	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
28	24 January 1867	Samuel McLean Barbara Sutherland	Samuel McLean Barbara Sutherland 💍 1867/9448	Bachelor Spinster	Brickmaker	29 29	Dunedin Dunedin	22 yrs 5 yrs	In Knox Church Dunedin	1741		24 January 1867	Rev. D. M. Stuart
29	25 January 1867	Peter Wallace Young Agnes Kerr Simpson	Peter Wallace Young Agnes Kerr Simpson 💍 1867/9451	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 months	In the house of Walter Simpson M. Walley	1743	Walter Simpson, Father	25 January 1867	Rev. D. M. Stuart
30	25 January 1867	Donald McLennan Helen McDonald	Donald McLennan Helen McDonald 💍 1867/8911	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 28	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 3 weeks	In the manse of The Rev. Thomas Burns D.D. Dunedin	1559		25 January 1867	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
31	28 January 1867	James Forsyth Jeanie Sanderson	James Forsyth Jeanie Sanderson 💍 1867/9085	Widower Spinster	Toll money	41 26	Tokomairiro Dunedin	5 yrs 1 week	In all Saints Tokomairiro Church Dunedin	1619		28 January 1867	Rev. E. K. Granger
32	28 January 1867	Henry Smith Fish Jane Barr	Henry Smith Fish Jane Carr 💍 1867/9106	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Engineer	28 19	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3½ yrs	In St. Pauls Church Dunedin	1624	No person to give consent	28 January 1867	Rev. E. G. Edwards
33	28 January 1867	Robert Gunn Elizabeth French	Robt Gunn Elizabeth French 💍 1867/9457	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 21	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 1 year	In the house of Robert Gunn Russell Street Dunedin	1745		28 January 1867	Rev. D. M. Stuart
34	28 January 1867	George Deans Mary Pollock Abbey	George Deans Mary Pollock Abbey 💍 1867/9454	Bachelor Spinster	Mason	28 28	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 5 yrs	In the house of George Deans Great King Street Dunedin	1744		28 January 1867	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).