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 553

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
277	18 December 1867	Thomas Wood Mary Ann Roberts	Thomas Wood Mary Ann Roberts 💍 1867/9190	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 weeks	In St. Pauls Church	1653		18 December 1867	Revd W.G. Edwards
278	19 December 1867	Henry Aither Agnes Cowan	Henry Aitken Agnes Cowan 💍 1867/9679	Bachelor Spinster		27 23	Dunedin Dunedin	4 yrs 4 days	In Flour Cottage Elm Row	1822		19 December 1867	Revd J. M. Stuart
279	19 December 1867	Richard Howard Caroline Cadette	George Richard Howard Caroline Cadette Alpenny 💍 1867/9193	Widower Widow	Chemist	39 40	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 5 yrs	In St Pauls Church	1654		19 December 1867	Revd W.G. Edwards
280	19 December 1867	William Davidson Elizabeth Angus	William Davidson Elizabeth Angus 💍 1867/9385	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	36 36	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 1 month	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages	1720		19 December 1867	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
281	20 December 1867	Edmund Russell Elizabeth Susan	Edmund Russell Elizabeth Lunam 💍 1868/8975	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	30 19	Blueskin Blueskin	18 months 3 yrs	In the house of Edmund Russell	9/10	David Susan Susan father	20 December 1867	Revd W. Johnston
282	23 December 1867	Thomas Dow Janet Ireland	Thos Low Janet Ireland 💍 1868/10345	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	26 21	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 6 yrs	In the house of John Kidston Grant Street	1907		23 December 1867	Revd J. M. Stuart
283	23 December 1867	Francis Brannen Catherine Coam	Francis Brannen Catherine Cain 💍 1867/9313	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	28 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 month	In St Josephs Church	1696		23 December 1867	Revd D. Moreau
284	23 December 1867	Lawrence Moter Elizabeth Rogers	Lawrence Moter Elizabeth Rogers 💍 1868/10348	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	39 37	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of Frederick Bowers George Street	1968		23 December 1867	Revd J. M. Stuart
285	24 December 1867	James Munro Margaret Florest	James Munro Margaret Forrest 💍 1867/9682	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	34 27	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 3 yrs	In Knox Church	1824		24 December 1867	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).