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 532

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
104	April 8	Robert Byers Grace Ross	Robert Byers Grace Ross 💍 1867/9535	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	22 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of Wm Sutherland Cumberland	1771	No Person to give consent	April 8th	Revd D.M. Stuart
105	April 12	John Leggers Isabella Cowan	John Eggers Isabella Cowan Colledge 💍 1867/9394	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	36 21	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 10 months	In the house of Mr John Tennant Grant Street Dunedin	1723		April 12th	Revd D.M. Stuart
106	April 12	Samuel Beary Hacket Leila Mary Friend Davies	James Henry Hacket Leila Mary Friend Davies 💍 1867/10237	Bachelor Spinster	Mining Commissioner	27 19	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 3 yrs.	In All Saints Church Dunedin	2017	Legal Guardian	April 12th	Revd H.L. Granger
107	April 13	William Mitchell Barbara Broas	William Mitchell Barbara Boag 💍 1867/8941	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	43 28	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 10 days	In the house of John Gray Pinehill	1569		April 15th	Rev. Thomas Burns
108	April 15	Patrick Redfern Sarah Gordon	Patrick Hession Sarah Gordon 💍 1867/9247	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 23	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 week	In St Joseph's Church Dunedin	1673		April 15th	Revd P. Moreau
109	April 15	Alexander McNab Margaret Keenan	Alexander McNab Catherine Johnston 💍 1867/9694	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	34 24	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 2 yrs.	In St Joseph's Church Dunedin			April 15th	Revd P. Moreau
110	April 15	Samuel Shaldrake Catherine Alexander	Samuel Shaldrack Catherine Alexander 💍 1867/9391	Widower Spinster	Sawyer	38 28	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of the Revd R. Seringeour Dunedin	1722		April 15th	Revd Mr. Seringeour
111	April 15	Archibald M. Innes Annie McRae	Archibald McInnes Annie McRae 💍 1867/9397	Bachelor Spinster	Foreman in timber yard	40 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of the Rev. R. Seringeour Dunedin	1724		April 18th	Revd R. Seringeour
112	April 18	John Muir Catherine Leeds Bain	John Muir Catherine Leeds Bain 💍 1867/8947	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	24 22	Dunedin Wakari	4 yrs 15 yrs	In the house of Mrs Helm Wakari	1571		April 18th	Revd Thomas Burns C.B.

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).