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 542

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
190	August 5	Richard Chapman Catherine Lawrence	Richard Fitzsimons Catherine Lawrenceson 💍 1867/9607 Richard Phelan Catherine Doyle 💍 1868/5348 Richard Markham Catherine Reade 💍 1867/4651	Widower Spinster	Stonemason	39 25	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 4 yrs	Knox Church Dunedin	1798		August 5th	Revd D. M. Stuart
191	August 5	John Sutherland Jane Sutherland	John Sutherland Jane Sutherland 💍 1867/9610	Bachelor Spinster	Stock owner	32 21	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 days	Knox Church Dunedin	1799		August 5th	Revd D. M. Stuart
192	August 6	Thomas Miller Lillias Paterson	Thomas Miller Lillias Paterson 💍 1867/9364	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	30 21	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 week	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1913		August 6th	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
193	August 5	Alexander McDonald Mary Mulraney	Alexander McDonnell Mary Mulroyen 💍 1867/9286 Alexander Bennet Mary Milroy 💍 1867/6184	Bachelor Spinster	Broker	37 23	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3 yrs	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1889		August 8th	Revd L. Moreau
194	August 12	William Fernie Margaret Elizabeth Allen	William French Margaret Elizabeth Allen 💍 1867/8977	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	24 21	Dunedin Dunedin	15 months 14 months	In the house of Mrs Allen Maitland Street Dunedin	1881		August 12th	Revd Thomas Burns F.C.
195	August 12	James Young Agnes Jullies	James Young Agnes Tulliss 💍 1867/9613	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	39 34	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 weeks	In the house of Mrs Harper Leith Street Dunedin	1880		August 12th	Revd D. M. Stuart
196	August 12	Alfred William Draymond Eugenia Jones	Alfred William Craymer Eugenia Jones 💍 1867/9157	Bachelor Spinster	Warehouseman	27 27	Dunedin Dunedin	4 1/2 yrs 1 month	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1941		August 12th	Revd E. G. Edwards
197	August 15	Alexander Blair Elizabeth Robertson	Alexander Blair Elizabeth Robertson 💍 1867/8980 Alexander Stewart Margaret Robertson 💍 1867/9544	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	29 23	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 2 months	In the house of the Revd Thomas Burns F.C. Dunedin	1882		August 15th	Revd Thomas Burns F.C.
198	August 13	John Cameron Mary Ann Reid	John Cameron Mary Ann Reid 💍 1867/9616	Bachelor Spinster	Station Manager	28 20	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 6 weeks	In Knox Church Dunedin	1801	George Reid Father	August 15th	Revd D. M. Stuart

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).