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 544

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
208	September 2nd 1867	George Young Agnes Halliday	George Young Agnes Halliday 💍 1867/9076	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	23 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 3 yrs	In the Baptist Church Dunedin	1614		September 2nd 1867	Rev. J.L.P. Parsons
209	September 4th 1867	Alexander McPhail Catherine Johnston	Alexander McNab Catherine Johnston 💍 1867/9694	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	34 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 yrs	In the house of the Revd R. Somerville Manse Street Dunedin	1828		September 4th 1867	Revd R. Somerville
210	September 4th 1867	Michael Dignan Jane Goggin	Michael Flynn Jane Boyle 💍 1867/9634	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	26 24	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 year	In the house of John McLoughlin Great King Street Dunedin	1807		September 4th 1867	Rev. J. A. Stuart
211	September 4th 1867	Richard Pearson Mary Hougless	Richard Pearson Mary Hughes 💍 1867/9289	Bachelor Widow	Butcher	31 29	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of Richard Pearson Maitland Street Dunedin	1688		September 4th 1867	Revd T. Moreau
212	September 7th 1867	Hinrich Lutjens Catherine Connolly		Bachelor Spinster	Miner	34 24	Dunedin Dunedin	5 days 5 days	In St. Josephs Church Dunedin	1689		September 7th 1867	Revd T. Moreau
213	September 9th 1867	Thomas Brodie Ellen Grant	Thomas Brodie Helen Grant 💍 1867/9367	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	26 21	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 4 days	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1914		September 9th 1867	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
214	September 11th 1867	Frederick William Eason Maggie Fernie Millar	Frederick William Eason Maggie Fernie Millar 💍 1867/9079	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	21 18	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 6 yrs	In the house of Thomas Eason Brown Street Dunedin	1615	Matthew Millar Father	September 11th 1867	Rev. J.L. Parsons
215	September 12th 1867	Joseph Forde Margaret Ford	Joseph Throp Margaret Ford 💍 1867/9637	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	26 25	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 9 yrs	In the house of Alexander Ford Pine Hill near Dunedin	1808		September 12th 1867	Rev. J. A. Stuart
216	September 14th 1867	Matthew Martain Jane Alis	Matthew Martain Jane Alis 💍 1867/9370	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 35	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1915		September 14th 1867	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin

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).