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 556

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
150	3 February 1869	John Griffen Agnes Sarah Beddie	John Griffen Agnes Sarah Bedelia McSwiney 💍 1869/8661	Widower Spinster	Merchant	42 21	Dunedin Dunedin	8 years 5 yrs	In St. Joseph's Church	1503		3 February 1869	Rev. D. Moreau
151	5 February 1869	Edward Darling Ellen Springett	Edward Carling Ellen Springett 💍 1869/8880	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	39 36	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 year	In St. Paul's Church	1580		5 February 1869	Rev. E. G. Edwards
152	8 February 1869	Henry Parsons Mary Bramond	Henry Parsons Mary Cramond 💍 1869/9261	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	25 19	Dunedin East Taieri	3 yrs 3 days	In the house of Robert Bramond, East Taieri	171	Robert Bramond, father	8 February 1869	Rev. Wm. Will
153	9 February 1869	John Hedge Margaret Watson	John Gallen Margaret Maron 💍 1869/4004 John Gardner Margaret Collins 💍 1869/8901 John Wilson Margaret Dickson 💍 1869/9381 John Bowie Margaret Black 💍 1869/8502	Bachelor Spinster	Dairyman	23 27	Dunedin Dunedin	10 yrs 2 yrs	In the house of John Hedge, Russell Street, Dunedin			9 February 1869	Rev. C. M. Stuart
154	12 February 1869	John Heffernan Kate Heart	John Heffernan Kate Hart 💍 1869/3912	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St Joseph's Church	1846		12 February 1869	Rev. D. Moreau
155	13 February 1869	Thomas Bannon Margaret Woods	Thomas Cannon Margaret Woods 💍 1869/8883	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	28 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St. Paul's Church	1581		13 February 1869	Rev. E. G. Edwards
156	15 February 1869	William Espie Margaret Reid	William Espie Margaret Reid 💍 1869/8751	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	25 19	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 19 yrs	In the house of Charles Reid, Arthur Street, Dunedin	1535	Charles Reid, Father	15 February 1869	Rev. Thomas Burns
157	16 February 1869	George Ross Eliza Weipers	George Ross Eliza Weipers 💍 1869/3964	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	34 24	Dunedin Peninsula	3 days 8 months	In the house of Peter Weiper of Peninsula	687	Peter Weiper	16 February 1869	Rev. A. Greig

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).