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 535

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
131	May 11	Bernard Cunningham Mary Anderson	Bernard Cunningham Mary Anderson 💍 1867/9256	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	25 30	Kaikorai Valley Dunedin	7 months 5 months	In St. Joseph's	1699		May 11	Rev'd G. Moreau
132	May 11	Andrew Castello Mary Catherine Thornton		Bachelor Spinster	Miner	35 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Joseph's Church	1696		May 11	Rev'd G. Moreau
133	May 13	William Williams Clara Wilcox	William Williams Clara Wilcox 💍 1867/8959	Widower Spinster	Waiter	29 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 1 year	Knox Church Dunedin	1575		May 13	Rev'd Thomas Burns D.D.
134	May 13	James Harnsey Elizabeth Kettle	James Macassey Elizabeth Kettle 💍 1867/9550	Bachelor Spinster	Barrister	35 20	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 20 yrs	In the house of Mrs Kettle Little Bowene Dunedin	1777	Amelia Kettle Mother	May 15	Rev'd C.M. Stuart
135	May 20	James Noel Jane Torrance	James Nevel Jane Torrance 💍 1867/8965	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 26	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 6 months	John Wilson Dowling Street Dunedin	1577		May 20	Rev'd Thomas Burns D.D.
136	May 20	Daniel Tonner Fanny Daniels	Daniel Torrens Fanny Daniels 💍 1867/9400	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	31 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 4 yrs	In the house of the Rev'd Mr. Serymgeour Dunedin	1725		May 20	Rev'd P. Serymgeour
137	May 20	Archibald M'Hall Margaret Harman	Archibald McNeil Margaret Seaman 💍 1867/9739	Widower Widow	Settler	55 50	Blueskin Blueskin	3 yrs 5 months	In the house of Mr Chalmers Thomas Quayle Blueskin	1843		May 20	Rev'd William Johnstone
138	May 21	Patrick Kenney Frances Hyne	Patrick Kenney Frances Lloyd 💍 1867/9259	Bachelor Spinster	Licensed Victualler	35 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1698		May 21	Rev'd G. Moreau
139	May 23	Thomas Kay Mary Combs	Thomas Kay Mary Coombes 💍 1867/9091	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	33 23	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 5 yrs	In All Saints Church Dunedin	1619		May 23	Rev'd D.W. Granger

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).