Intentions to Marry, 1869

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840381, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 553

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
9	8 January 1869	William Olfred Mosleh Adelaide Jones	William Alfred Mosley Adelaide Jones 💍 1869/8841 William Charles Jowsey Annie Jones 💍 1869/8922	Widower Spinster	Gentleman	42 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Bully Mouth Street Dunedin	1566		8 January 1869	Rev. A. R. Fitchett
10	8 January 1869	Daniel McKellar Mary Nicholson	Daniel McKellar Mary Nicholson 💍 1869/8328	Widower Spinster	Blacksmith	50 29	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of Daniel McKellar Hanover Street Dunedin	1387		8 January 1869	Rev. D. M. Stuart
11	9 January 1869	Gustavus Varley Catherine M. Pherson	Gustavus Varley Catherine McPherson 💍 1869/6285	Bachelor Spinster	Artist	34 30	Dunedin Dunedin	15 months 2 yrs	In the house of Mrs Cameron Kaikorai	685		9 January 1869	Rev. Wm Alves
12	11 January 1869	Archibald Hill Kate Mary Willis	Archibald Hill Jack Kate Mary Willis 💍 1869/4257	Bachelor Spinster	Secretary to the Victoria Insurance Company	33 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 yrs 4 yrs	In All Saints Church		Alexander James Willis, Father	11 January 1869	Rev. E. H. Granger
13	12 January 1869	George Stewart Jane Susan Millar	George Stewart Richardson Jane Susan Miller 💍 1869/8313	Bachelor Widow	Ironmonger	25 28	Dunedin Dunedin	5 yrs 6 yrs	In the house of Mrs Millar Brown Street Dunedin	1382		12 January 1869	Rev. D. M. Stuart
14	13 January 1869	Edward Devitt Elizabeth Ellen Skentelburn Meade	Edward Devitt Elizabeth Ellen Sheuletbury Meade 💍 1869/4269	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	34 27	Peninsula Peninsula	4 yrs 2 months	In All Saints Church Dunedin			28 January 1869	Rev. E. H. Granger
15	14 January 1869	William Baskayne Jones Penelope Lloyd	William Haskayne Jones Penelope Lloyd 💍 1869/4266	Bachelor Spinster	Banker	39 23	Dunedin Green Island	7 yrs 16 yrs	In the house of Mrs Lloyd Green Island			14 January 1869	Rev. E. H. Granger
16	15 January 1869	William Sandilands Mary Ann Walker	William Sandilands Mary Ann Walker 💍 1869/8796	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 28	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 4 yrs	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1550		15 January 1869	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
17	15 January 1869	William Johnston Elizabeth O'Malley	William Johnston Elizabeth O'Malley 💍 1869/8646	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	27 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 months	In St. Joseph's Church Dunedin	1498		15 January 1869	Rev. D. Moreau

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).