Intentions to Marry, 1870

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840382, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, November 15 2024

Page 569

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 January 1870

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
17	17 January 1870	John Thomas Dawson Margaret Robertson	Jno Thomas Dawson Margaret Robertson 💍 1870/8403	Bachelor Spinster	Summer-man	26 22	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 6 years	In the house of Mrs Robertson		18 January 1870	Rev D. Stuart
18	18 January 1870	John Roberts Louisa Jane Kettle	John Roberts Louisa Jane Kettle 💍 1870/8409	Bachelor Spinster	Wool Merchant	24 21	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 21 years	In the house of Mrs Kettle Littlebourne		21 January 1870	Rev. L.M. Stuart
19	19 January 1870	James Henry Edwards Mary Ann Anderson	James Henry Edwards Mary Ann Anderson 💍 1870/8406	Bachelor Widow	Coach driver	25 35	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 4 years	Knox Church		24 January 1870	Rev. Wm. Stuart
20	20 January 1870	George Daniels Emily Jane Dawle		Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	36 18	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 6 months	All Saints Church Dunedin	No person to give Consent	25 January 1870	Rev. E.G. Granger
21	21 January 1870	Thomas James Martin Sarah Falconer Taylor	Thomas James Marton Sarah Falconer Taylor 💍 1870/6396	Bachelor Spinster	Bank clerk	29 38	Dunedin Brighton	5 years 3 days	In the House of Mr Taylor, Brighton, East Taieri		26 January 1870	Rev. Mr. Alves
22	22 January 1870	Samuel Doodeward Annie Bird	Samuel Doodeward Annie Bird 💍 1870/8838	Bachelor Spinster	Photographer	30 28	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 7 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages		27 January 1870	The Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
23	23 January 1870	Charles Alexander Grut Ellen Deverall	Charles Alexander Grut Ellen Deverall 💍 1870/8412	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	31 19	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 1 year	Knox Church	No person to give consent	27 January 1870	Rev L.M. Stuart
24	24 January 1870	Patrick Higgion Mary Rabit	Patrick Hession Mary Rabbit 💍 1870/8688	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	32 26	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 7 years	St Joseph's Church Dunedin		28 January 1870	Rev. D. Morreau
25	25 January 1870	Samuel Morris Mary Black	Samuel Morris Mary Black 💍 1870/4617	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	24 20	Peninsula Peninsula	12 years 1 month	In the house of Thomas Morris, Settler Peninsula	Alexander Black, Father	31 January 1870	Rev. A. Greig

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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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).