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 584

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
35	1 November 1869	Adam Spence Jane Ann Wood	Adam Spence Jane Ann Wood 💍 1869/8574	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	30 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Royal Hotel Dunedin	1473		1 November 1869	Rev D. M. Stuart
36	1 November 1869	William Richard Jeffray Sarah Ann Sly	William Richard Jeffreys Sarah Ann Sly 💍 1869/9189	Bachelor Spinster	Bank Clerk	31 18	Mornington Caversham	1 year 4 years	In St Peters Church Caversham	1686	James Sly, father	1 Nov	Rev. J. J. Stanley
37	1 November 1869	Duncan Mains Elizabeth Paterson	Duncan Mains Elizabeth Paterson 💍 1869/8571	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	40 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church Dunedin	1492		1 Nov	Rev D. M. Stewart
38	1 November 1869	Joseph Parkin Jane Alexander	Joseph Parkin Jane Alexander 💍 1869/8829	Widower Spinster	Contractor	46 31	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 4 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1561		1 November	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
39	2 November 1869	John Gibson Jane Purdie	John Gibson Jane Purdie 💍 1869/8634	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 20 years	In The Baptist Church Hanover Street Dunedin	1493		2 November	The Rev. J. Williams
40	3 November 1869	Alexander Larp Annie Ellenden	Alexander Lark Nicholas Annie Ellenden 💍 1869/8784	Widower Spinster	Miner	30 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 6 months	In the Manse of the Rev. Thomas Burns D.D. Dunedin	1346		3 Nov	Rev. Thomas Burns D.D.
41	3 November 1869	Dugald Paterson Elizabeth Wilson	Dugald Paterson Elizabeth Wilson 💍 1869/8577	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	29 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 18 years	In the house of Mr George Young Dunedin	1494		3 November	Rev D. M. Stuart
42	6 November 1869	Coryn William Hoddy Mary Elizabeth Hodges	Coryn Williams Huddy Mary Elizabeth Hodges 💍 1869/8637	Bachelor Spinster	Bottler	19 16	Dunedin Dunedin	8 years 8 years	In the Bricklayers Hotel Princes Street Dunedin	1494	Ellen Hoddy, Mother & Sarah Farrell, Mother	6th November	Rev. J. Williams

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).