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 541

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
181	July 22 1867	Thomas Read Matheson Elizabeth Jane Wadie	Thomas Creran Matheson Elizabeth Jane Wadie 💍 1867/4150	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	24 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 4 years	In the house of Henry Wadie London Street Dunedin	1795	Henry Wade Father	July 22 1867	Revd D. M. Stuart
182	July 24 1867	Andrew Thomson Margaret Hamilton	Andrew Thomson Margaret Hamilton 💍 1867/9595	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	25 24	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 2 years	In the house of [UNCLEAR]	1797		July 24 1867	Revd D. M. Stuart
183	July 25 1867	William Leach Margaret Ann Gilmore	William Diack Margaret Ann Gilmore 💍 1867/9037	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Caledonian Hotel, Walker	1601		July 25 1867	Revd J. Watt
184	July 26 1867	Henry James Peach Mary Millen	Henry Amos Peach Mary Miller 💍 1867/9154	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 26	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 4 weeks	In St. Pauls Church	1640		July 26 1867	Revd E. G. Edwards
185	July 29 1867	James Middleton Helen Armstrong	James Middleton Helen Armstrong 💍 1867/9601	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	30 30	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 2 weeks	In the house of Alexander Armstrong Castle Street Dunedin	1796		July 29 1867	Revd D. M. Stuart
186	July 30 1867	Charles Edward Wilkins Maria Sword	Charles Dobden Wilkins Maria Sword 💍 1867/9277	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	29 22	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 1 year	In St Josephs Church	1684		July 30 1867	Revd J. Moreau
187	July 30 1867	Patrick Coffey Margaret Hand	Patrick Coffey Margareth Hand 💍 1867/9280	Bachelor Spinster	Drouerable	30 27	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 1 month	In St Josephs Church Dunedin	1685		July 30 1867	Revd J. Moreau
188	August 1 1867	William McAusland Agnes Gray	William McHutchison Agnes Hay 💍 1867/9604	Bachelor Spinster	Clergyman	31 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 1/2 years	In the house of John Gray Maori Hill	1799		August 1 1867	Revd D. M. Stuart
189	August 2 1867	John Mouat Maria Theresa McNamara	John Mouat Maria Theresa McNamara 💍 1867/9283	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	31 22	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 2 months	In Norwood Villa Russell Street Dunedin	1686		August 2 1867	Revd J. Moreau

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).