Intentions to Marry, 1872

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840384, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 606

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Apr - Jun

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
151	6 April 1872	William Winton Isabella Lindors Ford	William Winton Isabella Lindors Ford 💍 1872/6902	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	21 21	Pine Hill Pine Hill	2 years 6 years	In the Wesleyan Chapel	72/466	13 April 1872	Rev. Alexander Reid
152	13 April 1872	John Veitch Margaret Stewart	John Veitch Margaret Stewart McAlpin 💍 1872/7022	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	30 21	Mornington Dunedin	1 month 2 years	In the House of John Veitch	72/507	15 April 1872	Rev. D. M. Stuart
153	15 April 1872	James Chalmers Annie Wright	Johannes Thorsen Kofoed Annie Wright 💍 1872/7454	Widow		24	Dunedin	12 months	In the House of James Chalmers	72/491	15 April 1872	Rev. John Menzies
154	16 April 1872	Johannestorrison Kofoed Jane Gibson	James Wilson Jane Gibson 💍 1872/7220	Bachelor Spinster	Brewer	34 30	Wetherstones Dunedin	4 Years 3 years	Wautahuna Road, Tuapeka	72/572	16 April 1872	William Parker Street, Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin
155	16 April 1872	James Wilson Alice Lindsay	James Wilson Jane Gibson 💍 1872/7220	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	38 26	Kaikorai Dunedin	18 months 3 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin		16 April 1872	Rev. D. M. Stuart
156	16 April 1872	Thomas Melmoth Smith [UNCLEAR]		Widower	Coach proprietor	34	Dunedin	1 week	Knox Church
157	17 April 1872	Peter Rodow Julia Connor	Peter Rodow Julia Connor 💍 1872/7025	Bachelor Widow	Mariner	32 32	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 years	In the House of John Wheeler Great King Street	72/508	17 April 1872	Rev. D. M. Stuart
158	19 April 1872	Robert Currie Mary Gordon	Robert Currie Mary Gordon 💍 1872/7034	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker Servant	33 26	Green Island Dunedin	5 years 16 months	In the House of James Wright	72/484	19 April 1872	Rev. Wm Stuart
159	22 April 1872	Archibald Weed Janet Don	Archibald McLeod Janet Don 💍 1872/7031	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	34 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 8 days	In the House of John Ramage Cumberland Street	72/510	22 April 1872	Rev. D. M. Stuart

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

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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).