Intentions to Marry, 1871

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840383, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

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

Page 599

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1871

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
175	13 October 1871	John Kelso Ferguson Amy Parminter	John Kelso Ferguson Amy Parminter 💍 1871/7833	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	27 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 5 years	In the Manse of Rev G Sutherland	346		13 October 1871	Rev. G. Sutherland
176	14 October 1871	John Brown Catherine Meck Hastie	John Brown Catherine Meek Hastie 💍 1871/7830	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	32 23	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 days	In the Manse of Rev G Sutherland	345		14 October 1871	Rev. G Sutherland
177	16 October 1871	Edmund Carrington Mary Jane George	Edmund Carrington Buxton Sutherland Mary Jane George 💍 1871/6867	Bachelor Spinster	Dealer	29 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of Registrar of Marriages, William Parker Street	42/15		16 October 1871	Buxton Sutherland
178	18 October 1871	Simon Hewit Elizabeth Beaty	Simon Hewitt Elizabeth Beatty 💍 1871/7770	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	33 27	Dunedin Dunedin	9 days 3 days	In St Pauls Church	325		18 October 1871	Rev. E.G. Edwards
179	18 October 1871	Hugh W Kinnon Catherine Carmichael	Hugh McKinnon Catherine Carmichael 💍 1871/7959	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman Servant	30 30	Dunedin Dunedin	8 days 14 days	In the Caledonian Hotel, Walker Street	389		18 October 1871	Rev. Dm. Stuart
180	19 October 1871	Francis Anderson Jane Naismith	Francis Anderson Jane Naismith 💍 1871/9174	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 14 days	In the Immigration Depot			19 October 1871	Rev. George Sutherland
181	20 October 1871	Robert Forbes Fincher Louisa Jane Garland	Robert Forbes Fincher Louisa Jane Garland 💍 1871/7962	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	29 19	Dunedin Maori Hill near Dunedin	18 months 4 months	In the House of Charles H Ziele	390	William Riley Garland, Father	20 October 1871	Rev. Dm Stuart
182	23 October 1871	Hugh Traner Mary Mainland	Hugh Trainer Mary Mainland 💍 1871/9177	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic Servant	30 26	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 8 years	In the House of Charle Clouston, Duncan Street Dunedin			23 October 1871	Rev. George Sutherland

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).