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 525

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
53	February 19th	James McMillan Elizabeth Harland	James McMillan Elizabeth Harlow 💍 1867/9490	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	28 25	Tokomairiro Dunedin	4 yrs 3 weeks	In the house of Mr Harland, Hanover Street Dunedin	1750		February 19th	Revd D M Stuart
54	February 19th	John McEullock Sarah Watson	John McCulloch Sarah Watson 💍 1867/9346	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	27 26	Dunedin Dunedin	7 yrs 4 yrs	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1707		February 19th	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
55	February 22nd	David Cuthbert Braid Amelia Mary Kelly	David Cuthbert Braid Amelia Mary Kelly 💍 1867/9349	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	27 24	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 3 months	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1708		February 22nd	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
56	February 22nd	William Brown Elizabeth McNeill	Wm Brown Elizabeth McNeill 💍 1867/9319	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	24 22	Peninsula Peninsula	2 months 2 months	In the Manse of Rev J McNaughton Andersons Bay	1709		February 22nd	Rev J McNaughton
57	February 23rd	Henry Mathews Sarah Jane Fraser		Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	25 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 1 year	In the house of Mrs Fraser Hope Street Dunedin	1610	Jane Fraser, Mother	February 23rd	Revd J Parsons
58	February 25th	Jose de Andrade Macedo Eliza Walshe	Jose de Androde Macedo Eliza Walsh 💍 1867/4144	Bachelor Spinster	Hair-dresser	26 21	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 2½ yrs	In St Josephs Church Dunedin	1668		February 25th	Rev F Moreau
59	February 26th	John Laurie Agnes Wilson	Jno Lawrie Agnes Wilson 💍 1867/9493 George Jackson Agnes Wilson 💍 1867/7537	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 19	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 2 weeks	In Knox Church Dunedin	75	Richard Wilson, Father	February 26th	Revd D M Stuart
60	February 26th	John Tunnage Jane Stewart	John Tunnage Jane Stewart 💍 1867/9724	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 17	Hamilton Bay Portobello	6 weeks 7 years	In the house of William Rochford Port Chalmers	838	Barbara Rochford, Mother	February 26th	Revd Wm Johnstone
61	February 26th	Alfred Horton Powell Agnes Laura Ray	Alfred Norton Touritt Agnes Laura King 💍 1867/9115	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	27 16	Dunedin Dunedin	5 days 3 days	In St Pauls Church Dunedin	167	Adam Ray, Father	February 26th	Revd E G Edwards

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).