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 536

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
140	May 25 1867	John Roughness Ansty Meana		Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1699	May 25	Rev'd C. Moreau
141	May 25 1867	John Matthewson Mary Henderson	John Mathewson Mary Henderson 💍 1867/9403	Bachelor Spinster	Mason	28 23	Dunedin Mornington	5 yrs 2 yrs	In the Manse of the Rev. R. Dunedin	1796	May 25	Rev'd R. Somerville
142	May 25 1867	William Graburn Isabella Malcolm	William Graburn Isabella Malcolm 💍 1867/9553	Bachelor Widow	Ironmonger	37 29	Mornington Mornington	18 months 2 weeks	In the house of Mr. Dix Earle Richmond Lodge	1778	May 25	Rev'd C. H. Stuart
143	May 27 1867	George Briody Kindon Euphemia Cameron	George Hodgkinson Euphemia Jamieson 💍 1867/9556	Bachelor Spinster	Runholder	33 22	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 2 weeks	In the house of W. Henry Worm York Place Dunedin	1779	May 27th	Rev'd C. H. Stuart
144	May 28 1867	Robert Chisholm Agnes Thomson	Robert Chisholm Agnes Thomson 💍 1867/9031	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 22	Dunedin Green Island	8 yrs 14 yrs	In the house of Thomas Thomson Glen Green Island	1599	May 28	Rev. Michael Watt
145	May 29 1867	Felix Saisandrier Ann Galvin	Felix Faisandier Ann Galvin 💍 1867/9265	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1599	May 29	Rev'd C. Moreau
146	May 30 1867	Frederick John Barker Mary Hoppart	Frederick John Barker Mary Heggart 💍 1867/9199	Widower Spinster	Nurseryman	45 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 5 yrs	In Wesleyan Church Dunedin	1650	May 30th	Rev'd A.R. Fitchett
147	May 31 1867	George Mathieson Mary M. Carter	George Mathiesin Mary McCarter 💍 1867/9073	Bachelor Spinster	Land Contractor	27 25	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of John Adams Great King Street Dunedin	1613	May 31	Rev'd J.L. Parsons
148	June 3 1867	William Collis Susannah Tollon	William Collis Susannah Ellen Hale 💍 1867/9148	Bachelor Widow	Staff Sergeant	34 28	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 6 months	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1638	June 3rd	Rev'd E.G. Edwards

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).