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 595

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1870

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
233	22 December 1870	James Millar Margaret Houston	James Miller Margaret Houston 💍 1870/8679	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 years 29 years	Saddle Hill Dunedin	7 years 5 years	In house of John Houston	East Taieri		22 December 1870	Rev D.M. Stuart
234	27 December 1870	George Bell Elizabeth Fairley	Geo Bell Elizabeth Fairley 💍 1870/8676	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	35 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	5 months 8 years	In the house of Alexander Coults of George St			27 December 1870	Rev D.M. Stuart
235	24 December 1870	James Bolton Ellen Brophy	James Bolton Ellen Broughan AKA Brophy 💍 1870/8778	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	31 years 29 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	St Joseph's Church, Dunedin			24 December 1870	Rev D. Stuart
236	28 December 1870	Thomas Slavin Mary McBullock	Thomas Flavin Mary McCulloch 💍 1870/8673	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	30 years 28 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 9 months	Knox Church, Dunedin			28 December 1870	Rev D.M. Stuart
237	28 December 1870	John Crawford Isabella McRae	John Crawford Isabella McRae 💍 1870/8670	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	28 years 18 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	Knox Church, Dunedin		Duncan McRae, father of Isabella McRae	28 December 1870	Rev D.M. Stuart
238	28 December 1870	Alexander Dodds Isabella Robertson	Alexander Dodds Isabella Robertson 💍 1871/6213	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	39 years 25 years	Blueskin Blueskin	10 years 3 months	In the house of James Burley, Roslyn	71/790		28 December 1870	Rev J.P. Scrimgeour
239	28 December 1870	Thomas Morris Margaret Fitzgerald	Thomas Morris Margaret Fitzgerald 💍 1870/4674	Bachelor Spinster	Coachman	26 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	13 years 3 years	In the house of Thomas Morris, Cannongate, Dunedin			28 December 1870	Rev J. Williams
240	28 December 1870	William Dalrymple Fanny Louisa Richardson	William Dalrymple Fanny Louisa Richardson 💍 1871/6291	Bachelor Spinster	Agent	37 years 25 years	Dunedin Clutha	9 years 3 years	In the house of Major Richardson, Clutha	71/817		28 December 1870	Rev R.L. Stanford
241	29 December 1870	Wenered Glass Mary Smith	Ebenezer Glass Mary Smith 💍 1871/6207 Edward Amer Mary Smith 💍 1870/5715	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	24 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 10 years	In the house of Ebenezer Glass, Smith St, Dunedin	71/788		29 December 1870	Rev R. Donningeour

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).