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 607

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
175	22 April 1872	John Rose Isabella Greig	John Rose Isabella Greig 💍 1872/7028	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	30 25	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 10 years	Knox Church Dunedin	712/1809		22 April 1872	Rev. Dm Stuart
176	22 April 1872	Christopher Smith Margaret Brown	Christopher Smith Margaret Brown 💍 1872/7037	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith	24 19	Dunedin Dunedin	9 years 11 years	Inthe Houseg Hanover Street Dunedin	712/1812	James Brown Father	23 April 1872	Rev Dm Stuart
177	24 April 1872	Joseph Boyd Kate Mansfield	Joseph Boyd Kate Mansfield 💍 1872/6701	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 14 days	Inthe Houseof RevdWm Coleman Dunedin	72/1696		24 April 1872	Rev William Coleman
178	25 April 1872	James Halley Mary Frances Ryan	James Halley Mary Francis Ryan 💍 1872/6704	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	28 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 days	St Josephs Church Dunedin	72/1697		25 April 1872	Rev William Coleman
179	25 April 1872	Patrick Cannon Mary Mchennan	Patrick Cannon Mary McLennan 💍 1872/6707	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	30 22	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 2 years	St Josephs Church Dunedin	72/1698		25 April 1872	Rev William Coleman
180	29 April 1872	John Mcgee Mary Costello	John McGee Mary Costello 💍 1872/7040	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Housekeeper	35 35	Dunedin Dunedin	7 days 7 days	Knox Church Dunedin	712/1813		29 April 1872	Rev Dm Stuart
181	29 April 1872	Andrew Cunningham Mary Norrie	Andrew Cunningham Mary Nurrie 💍 1872/6929	Widower Widow	Laborer	60 58	Green Island Green Island	4 years 12 months	Inthe House of William Faulds Green Island	712/1775		29 April 1872	Rev Michael Wath
182	1 May 1872	John MacIntosh Margery Urquhart	John McIntosh Marjory Urquhart 💍 1872/7043	Bachelor Spinster	Boatman Servant	30 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 4 years	Inthe House of Robert Hughes Great King Street Dunedin	712/1814		1 May 1872	Rev Dm 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).