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 537

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
149	June 3	Henry Kerr Isabella Johnston	Henry Hogg Isabella Johnstone 💍 1867/9559	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	36 23	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of James Pearce Castle Street Dunedin	1980		June 3rd	Rev. E. G. Edwards
150	June 4	William Clark Marion Chisholm	William Clark Marion Chisholm 💍 1867/8971	Widower Spinster	Sawyman	50 40	Caversham Dunedin	3 yrs 5 yrs	In the house of Marion Chisholm London Street Dunedin	1579		June 4th	Rev. Thomas Burns, D.D.
151	June 5	Henry Anderson Mary Ann Jack	Henry Anderson Mary Ann Jack 💍 1867/9562	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	37 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 yrs	In the house of William Richardson Leith Street Dunedin	1781	No person to give Consent	June 8th	Rev. E. G. Edwards
152	June 5	William McDougall Catherine Mackar Simpson	William McNaught Caven Catherine McKay Simpson 💍 1867/9565	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	26 21	Dunedin Caversham	3 days 19 yrs	In Knox Church Dunedin	1782		June 8th	Rev. E. G. Edwards
153	June 11	David Kirby Ann Flynn	David Kirby Ann Flynn 💍 1867/9268	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	30 26	Dunedin Dunedin	7 months 2 1/2 yrs	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1681		June 11th	Rev. E. McLean
154	June 12	Samuel Wallace Janet Ross	Samuel Wallace Janet Ross 💍 1867/9568	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	23 19	Dunedin Dunedin	17 yrs 18 months	In Knox Church Dunedin	1983	No person's consent	June 12th	Rev. E. G. Edwards
155	June 15	James Dickson Jane Talbot	James Dickson Jane Talbot 💍 1867/8968	Widower Spinster	Builder	46 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the manse of the Rev. Thomas Burns	1878		June 15th	Rev. Thomas Burns, D.D.
156	June 19	William Irvine Mary Johnston	William Irvine Mary Johnston 💍 1867/9034 William Fairbairn Jane Johnston 💍 1867/7156	Bachelor Spinster	Agriculturist	31 22	Green Island Green Island	8 yrs 9 months	In the house of William Irvine Green Island	1680		June 19th	Rev. M. Watt
157	June 22	Olegario Guardita Lydia Susanna Howlett	Olegaris Guardiola Susanna Howlett 💍 1867/9691	Bachelor Spinster	Restaurant keeper	40 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of the Rev. R. Connebee Dunedin	1827		June 22nd	Rev. R. Connebee

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).