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 540

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
172	July 13	Robert Long Margaret Cassidy	Robert Long Margaret Cassidy 💍 1867/9211	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	30 22	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3 months	St Josephs Church	1660	July 13	Revd D. R. Bichett
173	July 16	Walter Wright Margaret Lewis	Walter Wright Margaret Lewis 💍 1867/4252	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	33 24	Dunedin Dunedin	6 weeks 1 year	In the house of Alexander Rhind London Street	1793	July 16	Revd D. M. Stuart
174	July 17	James Boron Elizabeth Griffiths	James Doron Elizabeth Griffiths 💍 1867/8974	Widower Spinster	Master Mariner	50 29	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 5 days	In the Manse of the Revd Thomas Burns D.D.	1580	July 17	Revd Thomas Burns D.D.
175	July 17	Philip McVartin Ann Healy	Philip McCarthy Ann Dealy 💍 1867/9274	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	27 21	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 2 yrs	In St Josephs Church	1583	July 17	Revd R. Morean
176	July 18	William Meads Mary Davidson	William Heads Mary Davidson 💍 1867/9598	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 2 yrs	In Knox Church	1794	July 18	Revd D. M. Stuart
177	July 18	John McLellan Jane Brown	John McLellan Jane Brown 💍 1867/9409 George Dickison Jane Brown 💍 1867/8074	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman	25 28	Dunedin Dunedin	14 weeks 6 months	In the Manse of the Revd R. Scrymgeour	1728	July 18	Revd R. Scrymgeour
178	July 19	Joseph Francis Mary Paulenner	Joseph Francis Mary Falkener 💍 1867/9742	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 25	Portobello Portobello	3 yrs 4 months	In the house of James Melfort	1844	August 8th	Revd W. Johnstone
179	July 20	William Livingstone Catherine McKechnie	William Livingston Catherine McNickle 💍 1867/9592	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of Robert Wilson George Street	1791	July 20	Revd D. M. Stuart
180	July 22	George Hood Matilda Pike	George Hood Matilda Pike 💍 1867/9151	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	29 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 6 months	In St Pauls Church	1639	July 22	Revd E. G. Edwards

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).