Intentions to Marry, 1868

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840380, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 560

District of Quarter ending

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
90	28 May 1868	George Galloway Marrion Chisholm	George Galloway Marion Chisholm 💍 1868/10429	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	29 25	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 5 yrs	In the house of John Murray, High Street, Dunedin	1998		28 May 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
91	29 May 1868	Thomas Togo Sarah Muir	Thomas Fogo Sarah Muir 💍 1868/10432	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	30 28	Dunedin Dunedin	7 yrs 3 yrs	In the house of Andrew Lees, George Street, Dunedin	1999		29 May 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
92	30 May 1868	John Melican Margaret Hogan	John Melican Margaret Hogan 💍 1868/10249	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel-Keeper	27 25	Dunedin Dunedin	2 months 1 year	St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin	1932		30 May 1868	Rev. Moreau
93	30 May 1868	James M. Breasty Jemima Ramsay	Robert Bryson Jemima Ramsay 💍 1868/5606	Bachelor Widow	Surgeon	28 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 7 days	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	1958		30 May 1868	Registrar of Marriages, Ainslie
94	30 May 1868	Archibald Johnston Jane Boone Mason	Archibald Johnstown Graham Jane Boone Mason 💍 1868/10426	Bachelor Spinster	Cooper	27 29	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 5 yrs	In the house of Mrs James Mason, Union Street, Dunedin	1997		30 May 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
95	3 June 1868	Andrew Murray Hanny Mackay	Andrew Murray Fanny McKay 💍 1868/8864	Bachelor Widow	Play Dresser	42 30	Blueskin Dunedin	1 year 3 months	In the house of Andrew Anderson, York Place, Dunedin	2071		3 June 1868	Rev. Thomas Burns
96	3 June 1868	John Lumsden Catherine Henderson	John Lumsden Jopp Catharine Henderson 💍 1868/10435	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	24 17	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 5 yrs	Knox Church, Dunedin	2000	John Henderson, Father	3 June 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
97	3 June 1868	Alexander Durie Jane Millar Morrison	Alexander Durie Jane Millar Morrison 💍 1868/10438 Alexander Jenkins Jessie Morrison 💍 1868/9518	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	27 24	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 8 yrs	In the house of James Morrison, York Place, Dunedin	2001		3 June 1868	Rev. D. M. Stuart
98	4 June 1868	John Anderson Bridget Barr	John Anderson Bridget Carr 💍 1868/8942	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	27 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 yrs	In the Manse of the Rev. R. Serymgeour, Dunedin	2099		4 June 1868	Rev. R. Serymgeour

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).