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 616

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
141	20 August 1872	Charles Woodley Mary Ann ODonnell	Charles Woodley Mary Ann O' Donnell 💍 1872/7115	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Servant	29 25	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 4 years	Knox Church	771/1839		20 August 1872	Rev. Dr Stuart
142	22 August 1872	John Sinclair Janet Wark	John Sinclair Janet Wilkie 💍 1872/7121 John Sinclair Ellen Eliza Cornwall 💍 1872/5406	Grocer Spinster	Servant	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	15 years 1 year	Knox Church	771/1839		22 August 1872	Rev. Dr Stuart
143	26 August 1872	James Richard Spicer Julia Sago	James Richard Spicer Julia Jago 💍 1872/7118	Bachelor Spinster	Manufacturer	30 19	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 14 years	Knox Church	772/1838	no person to give consent	26 August 1872	Rev. Dr Stuart
144	27 August 1872	William Lind Jane Drummond	William Lind Jane Drummond 💍 1872/6887	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	32 33	Dunedin Dunedin	14 years 3 years	In the House of Elizabet[UNCLEAR] Lind	772/1860		27 August 1872	Rev. Alexander Reid
145	28 August 1872	Henry Leigh Purchie Mary Eliza Dick		Bachelor Spinster	Dentist	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 8 months	In the House of Thomas Dick	772/1885		28 August 1872	Rev. John William
146	28 August 1872	Alexander Thompson Janet Syme Taylor	Alexander Thompson Janet Syme Taylor 💍 1872/6890	Bachelor Spinster	Tentmaker	28 28	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 3 years	In the House of Thomas Hall	772/1861		28 August 1872	Rev. Thomas Roseby
147	30 August 1872	Ephraim Harris Janet Miller	Ephraim Harris Janet Miller 💍 1872/6758	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Domestic Servant	40 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the House of Priscilla Power	772/1887		30 August 1872	Rev. James Copland
148	30 August 1872	John Wallace Margaret Hislop	John Wallace Margaret Hislop 💍 1872/7301 Alexander Vallance Margaret Hislop 💍 1872/7682	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	29 22	Dunedin East Taieri	10 years 14 days	In the House of James Hislop	772/1888		30 August 1872	Rev. William

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).