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 526

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
62	February 27 1867	Frederick William Kenward Jessie McKay	Fredrick Wm Kenward Jessie McLay 💍 1867/9496	Bachelor Spinster	Publican	36 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox church Dunedin	758		February 27 1867	Rev'd J. M. Stuart
63	February 27 1867	Joseph Peart Margaret Muirhead	William Peart Margaret Muirhead 💍 1867/9046	Bachelor Spinster	Boot maker	25 19	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 10 yrs	In the house of William Tyson Manor Place Dunedin	604	M. Muirhead to give Consent	February 27 1867	Rev'd J. Ulaird
64	February 27 1867	John Nelson Dianna Mary Borthwick	John Nelson Diana Mary Borthwick 💍 1867/8917	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	27 16	Dunedin Dunedin	10 months 5 years	In the house of Mrs Evans York Place Dunedin	1561	Eliza Parkman Ennis mother	February 27 1867	Rev'd Thomas Burns D.D.
65	February 28 1867	John Reichels Jessie Miller	John Reichles Jessie Miller 💍 1867/8914	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith	27 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 6 weeks	In the manse of The Rev. Thomas Burns D.D. Dunedin	1560		February 28 1867	Rev'd Thomas Burns D.D.
66	February 28 1867	David Davidson Maria Robinson	David Davidson Maria Robson 💍 1867/9502	Bachelor Spinster	Cab driver	21 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 1 month	In Knox church Dunedin	1760		February 28 1867	Rev'd M. Stuart
67	March 1 1867	Joseph Sykes Webb Mabel Wilhelmina Phillips	Joseph Sykes Webb Mabel Wilhelmina Phillips 💍 1867/9118	Widower Spinster	Accountant	34 22	Dunedin Dunedin	7 yrs 18 months	In St Pauls church Dunedin	1628		March 1 1867	Rev'd E. G. Edwards
68	March 1 1867	Adam White Joan Anderson	Adam White Joan Anderson 💍 1867/8920	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	35 19	Primrose hill Kaikorai Bank	2 yrs 7 months	In the house of Richard Anderson Kaikorai Bank	1562	Richard Anderson Father	March 1 1867	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
69	March 2 1867	Alfred George Hearton Jessie Haliburton Chisholm	Alfred George Horton Jessie Holyburton Chisholm 💍 1867/9499	Bachelor Spinster	Shop keeper in Dunedin	24 23	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 10 months	In the house of J. H. Evans York Place Dunedin	1757		March 2 1867	Rev'd M. Stuart
70	March 4 1867	John McCleugh Margaret Fitzgerald	John McHugh Margaret Fitzgerald 💍 1867/9235	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	27 24	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 5 months	In St. Joseph's church Dunedin	1669		March 4 1867	Rev'd C. Moreau

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).