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 608

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
83	1 May 1872	George Moore Jane Jearon	George Moore Jessie Fearon 💍 1872/6785	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 20	Dunedin Dunedin	12 days 5 years	St Pauls Church	72/1795	No person to give consent	1 May 1872	Rev. W. Edwards
84	10 May 1872	William Ritchie Margaret Donston	Wm Ritchie Margaret Johnston 💍 1872/7049 William Ritchie Caroline Worsley 💍 1873/5225	Bachelor Spinster	Hawker Servant	45 30	Dunedin Dunedin	11 years 5 years	In the House of Henry Hogg Cumberland Street	M72/1876		10 May 1872	Rev. D.M. Stuart
85	11 May 1872	Robert Brown Jessie McFarlane	Robert Brown Jessie McFarlane 💍 1872/6875	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 2 years	Institution Samuel Jackman Leith Street Dunedin	M72/1856.		11 May 1872	Rev. Thomas Roseby
86	16 May 1872	Thomas Frew Mary McIlroy	Thomas Frew Mary McNeil 💍 1872/7046	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Servant	29 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 5 years	In the House of Rev. D.M. Stuart	M72/1815		16 May 1872	Rev. D.M. Stuart
87	20 May 1872	Charles Butter Agnes Potter	Charles Butter Agnes Potter 💍 1872/7052	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	28 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 8 months	Knox Church	M72/1879		20 May 1872	Rev. D.M. Stuart
88	20 May 1872	James Scott Isabella Robbie	James Scott Isabella Robbie 💍 1872/6827	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	23 28	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 2 weeks	In the House of Rev. John Gow	72/1741		20 May 1872	Rev. John Gow
89	20 May 1872	Alexander Cramond Margaret Ramago	Alexander Crumond Margaret Ramage 💍 1872/6749 Alexander Vallance Margaret Hislop 💍 1872/7682	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	21 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 12 years	North Dunedin Presbyterian Church	72/1744		20 May 1872	Rev. James Copland
90	20 May 1872	William Reid Jessie Stewart Reid	William Reid Jessie Stewart Reid 💍 1872/7058	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 19	Roslyn Dunedin	3 years 19 years	In the House of Charles Reid Arthur Street Dunedin	M72/1875	Charles Reid, father	20 May 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 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).