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 549

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
241	October 24th	Richard William Hide Martha Francesca Martin	Richard William Hide Martha Frances Love 💍 1867/9007	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	26 24	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 5 yrs	St Andrews Free Church	1591	October 24th	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
242	October 24th	Alfred Albert Hassell Mary Fitzmaurice	Agnes Albert Hassell Mary Fitzmaurice 💍 1867/9214	Widower Spinster	Bookmaker	37 26	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 5 months	In the house of Alfred Albert Hassell, Great King Street	1661	October 24th	Rev. A. R. Fitchett
243	October 24th	Alexander Wardlaw Agnes Battie	Alexander Wardlaw Agnes Cantie 💍 1867/9328	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	29 24	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 4 yrs	In the house of James Sanderson, Andersons Bay	1901	October 24th	Rev. J. M. McKerrass M.A.
244	October 25th	Stephen Read Emily Spearing	Stephen Read Emily Spurling 💍 1867/9172	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	34 27	Dunedin Dunedin	5 days 10 days	In St. Paul's Church	1646	October 25th	Rev. E. G. Edwards
245	October 28th	William Semple Brown Margaret Mary O'Farrell	William George Brown Margaret Mary O'Farrel 💍 1867/9301	Bachelor Spinster	Bottler	26 25	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 6 yrs	St. Joseph's Church	1692	October 28th	Rev. S. Moreau
246	November 2nd	James Philip Isabella Irvine Mainland	James Philip Isabella Irvine Mainland 💍 1867/9412	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	30 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 years	In the house of [UNCLEAR]	1929	November 2nd	Rev. R. Scrymgeour
247	November 4th	James Cameron Janet Grant	James Cameron Janet Grant 💍 1867/9661	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	40 32	Wakari Wakari	5 days 1 week	In the house of Donald Cameron, Wakari	1816	November 4th	Rev. Will. Stuart
248	November 4th	James Ruff Grace Berrill	James Duff Grace Bewill 💍 1867/9178	Bachelor Spinster	Shore Roper	35 24	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 week	In St. Paul's Church	1648	November 4th	Rev. E. G. Edwards
249	November 4th	James Home Gilligan Fanny Frances Rotherham	James H Gilligan Fanny Frances Rotherham 💍 1867/9019	Widower Spinster	Publican	39 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Occidental Hotel, Manners Street, Dunedin	1895	November 4th	Rev. G. Sutherland

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).