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 596

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
224	2 December 1870	William Maitland Lizzie Swanson	William Maitland Lizzie Swanson 💍 1870/8865	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin			2 December 1870	Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin
225	5 December 1870	Charles Peterson Mary McPhee	Charles Peterson Mary McPhee 💍 1870/8667	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	26 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 20 years	In the House of Saml. Wright, Cargill St, Dunedin		Ann McPhee, mother	5 December 1870	Revd. D. M. Stuart
226	10 December 1870	John George Draper Letitia Shand	John George Draper Letitia Shand 💍 1870/4671	Bachelor Spinster	Photography	22 years 17 years	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 10 years	In the house of George Shand, Princes St, Dunedin		George Shand, Father of Letitia Shand	10 December 1870	Revd. J Williams
227	12 December 1870	Frederick Risdon Emma Fuller	Frederick Risdon Emma Fuller 💍 1870/8868	Widower Spinster	Barman	30 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 years 6 months	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin			12 December 1870	Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin
228	14 December 1870	Patrick John Barry Ellen Curran	Patrick John Barry Ellen Curran 💍 1870/8775	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	30 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 3 years	In St Josephs Church, Dunedin			14 December 1870	Revd. D Moreau
229	16 December 1870	Frederick Henry McCoy Mary Ann Thompson	Frederick Henry McCoy Mary Ann Thompson 💍 1870/8832	Bachelor Spinster	Barrister at Law	28 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 days 2 months	In St Pauls Church, Dunedin			16 December 1870	Revd. E. G. Edwards
230	16 December 1870	John Sheppard Margaret McLean	John Sheppard Margaret McLean 💍 1871/6111	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	40 years 40 years	Portobello Dunedin	4 years 4 years	In Knox's Church, Dunedin	71/754		16 December 1870	Revd. D. M. Stuart
231	20 December 1870	Thomas Scott Rachel Mercer	Thomas Scott Rachel Mercer 💍 1870/8268	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	32 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 5 years	In the house of Charles Mercer, Dunedin			20 December 1870	Revd. R Scrimageour
232	21 December 1870	Henry Moffat Mary Knight	Henry Moffat Mary Knight 💍 1870/3881	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	27 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In St Pauls Church, Dunedin			21 December 1870	Revd. E. G. Edwards

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).