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 552

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
268	November 28 1867	Robert Johnson Ellen Irvine	Robert Johnson Eleanor Irvine 💍 1867/9097	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	27 36	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 1 year	In the house of William Aitcheson, Dunedin	1621		November 28 1867	Revd. E. G. Penny
269	December 3 1867	Benjamin Austin Mary Ann Dodds	Benjamin Austin Mary Ann Dodds 💍 1867/9187	Widower Widow	Carpenter	46 28	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 2 yrs	In St. Paul's Church, Dunedin	1657		December 3 1867	Revd. E. G. Edwards
270	December 4 1867	Francis Jackman Sarah Thick	Francis Tubman Sarah Dick 💍 1867/9676	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	24 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 month	In the house of Thomas Thick, Great King Street, Dunedin	1821	Thomas Thick, father	December 4 1867	Revd. D. M. Stuart
271	December 7 1867	William Hopkins Margaret Duncan	William Topping Margaret Lunnam 💍 1867/9751 William Doak Margaret Sheldon 💍 1867/8758 William Barron Margaret Gleeson 💍 1867/4420 William Preston Margaret Hynes 💍 1867/10099 William Allan Margaret McLeod 💍 1867/8158	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	31 22	Blueskin Blueskin	4 yrs 5 yrs	In the house of William Evans, Blueskin	1847		December 7 1867	Revd. William Johnstone
272	December 7 1867	Thomas Sinclair Ellen Everill	Thomas Sinclair Ellen Everill 💍 1867/4156	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	25 20	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of Robert Wilson, Maitland Street, Dunedin	1730		December 7 1867	Revd. R. Somerville
273	December 9 1867	George Harris Hannah Solomon	George Harris Hannah Solomon 💍 1867/9043	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	38 24	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 1 yr	In the house of Isaac Solomon, North East Valley	1603		December 9 1867	Revd. Jacob Levy
274	December 9 1867	James Farrell Ann Roddon	James Farrell Ann Roddon 💍 1867/9310	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	38 31	St. Kilda, Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 1 month	In St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin	1695		December 9 1867	Revd. D. Moreau
275	December 16 1867	William Wilkie Isabella Cameron	William Wilkie Isabella Cameron 💍 1867/9217	Bachelor Widow	Baker	34 40	Dunedin Dunedin	8 yrs 4 yrs	In the house of Isabella Cameron, George Street, Dunedin	1627		December 16 1867	Revd. A. R. Fitchett
276	December 17 1867	David Lilburne Anna Louisa Cumming	David Lilburne Anna Louisa Cumming 💍 1867/4215	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	29 18	Port Chalmers Port Chalmers Road, Dunedin	11 yrs 3 days	In St. Paul's Church, Dunedin	1652	John William Cumming, Father	December 17 1867	Revd. E. G. Edwards

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).