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 551

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
259	18 November 1867	James Kennedy Marion Anderson	James Kennedy Marion Anderson 💍 1867/9379	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	29 27	Green Island Dunedin	4 yrs 5 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1718		18 November 1867	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
260	19 November 1867	Thomas Dey Hannah Kelly	Thomas Leary Hannah Kelly 💍 1867/9307	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 20	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 5 yrs	In St Josephs Church Dunedin	1694		19 November 1867	Revd W. Moreau
261	19 November 1867	Thomas Alexander Alice Taylor	Thos Alexander Alice Taylor 💍 1867/9667	Bachelor Spinster	Clergyman	40 28	Along Bush Invercargill Dunedin	4 yrs 3 months	In the house of James Taylor Otago Brewery Invercargill	1818		19 November 1867	Revd W. M. Stuart
262	20 November 1867	Alexander Willing Margaret Black	Alexander McIlroy Margaret Black 💍 1867/9304	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	10 yrs 2 yrs	In St Josephs Church Dunedin	1693		20 November 1867	Revd W. Moreau
263	23 November 1867	Robert Brancis Mary Jane Proctor	Robert Francis Mary Jane Prictor 💍 1867/9673	Bachelor Spinster	Wood Carver	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	2½ yrs 12 yrs	In the house of George Proctor George Street Dunedin	1820		23 November 1867	Revd W. M. Stuart
264	25 November 1867	William Francis Boyden Sophia Julia Turley	William Francis Foyden Sophia Julia Finley 💍 1867/9703	Bachelor Spinster	Mercer	30 18	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 5 yrs	In the Manse of the Revd R Connebee Dunedin	1831	Margaretta Sarah Peters, Mother	25 November 1867	Revd R. Connebee
265	26 November 1867	Franz David Siedeber Anna Daly Thompson	Frank David Siedeberg Anna Daly Thompson 💍 1867/9184	Widower Spinster	Architect	40 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 yrs	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1650		26 November 1867	Revd E. G. Edwards
266	26 November 1867	Alfred Fletcher Anne Mackie	Alfred Fletcher Anne Mackie 💍 1867/9382	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	33 24	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 3 months	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1719		26 November 1867	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
267	28 November 1867	John McDonald Caroline Matilda Davies	John McDonald Caroline Matilda Davies 💍 1867/9709	Bachelor Widow	Master Mariner	35 30	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 5 years	In the house of Mrs Peters Cumberland Street Dunedin	1833		28 November 1867	Revd R. Connebee

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).