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 577

District of [unknown] Quarter ending 30 June 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
96	25 April 1870	Frederick William Pattle Mary Jarmen Davison	Frederick William Pattle Mary Tarman Davison 💍 1870/8799	Bachelor Spinster	Telegraph Line Man	23 19	Dunedin Dunedin	2 months 7 years	St Pauls Church Dunedin	William Davison, father	25 April 1870	Rev E.S. Edwards
97	25 April 1870	Timothy Casey Catherine Royton	Timothy Casey Catherine Neylon 💍 1870/8709	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 22	Wakari Wakari	1 year 1 year	St Josephs Church Dunedin		25 April 1870	Rev D Moreau
98	25 April 1870	William Peters Sarah Hill	William Peters Sarah Hill 💍 1870/8223	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	25 22	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 9 yrs	House of Mrs Hill, Dunedin		28 April 1870	Rev Williams
99	2 May 1870	William Winstanley Bolt Elizabeth Warren	William Winstanley Cobb Elizabeth Warren 💍 1870/8802	Bachelor Widow	Bank Manager	36 28	Timaru Dunedin	3 months 4 months	St Pauls Church Timaru		2 May 1870	Rev E.S. Edwards
100	3 May 1870	Henry Murphy Emily Shead	Henry Murphy Emily Shead 💍 1870/8715	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	24 20	Dunedin Dunedin	2 yrs 10 yrs	St Josephs Church Dunedin	William Shead, father	23 May 1870	Rev D Moreau
101	3 May 1870	Matthew Fogarty Mary Noonan	Matthew Fogarty Mary Noonan 💍 1870/8712	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 3 yrs	St Josephs Church Dunedin		3 May 1870	Rev D. Moreau
102	3 May 1870	Christopher Brown Emma Baldiston	Christopher Brown Emma Baldiston 💍 1870/8805	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	37 20	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 14 months	All Saints Church Dunedin		3 May 1870	Rev E.S. Edwards
103	5 May 1870	Denis O'Halloran Mary Melican	Denis O'Halloran Mary Melican 💍 1870/8718	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 yrs	St Josephs Church Dunedin		5 May 1870	Rev D. Moreau
104	6 May 1870	Henry Bowers Margaret Kerse	Henry Bowers Margaret Kerse 💍 1870/4893	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	32 24	Dunedin Dunedin	6 yrs 4 yrs	House of Mrs Kerse, 4 David Street Dunedin		6 May 1870	Rev M. Stuart

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).