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 617

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
149	30 August 1872	Thomas Hancock Priscilla Brock Humphreys	Thomas Hancock Priscilla Brook Humphreys 💍 1872/6794	Divorced by legal process Spinster	Hotel Keeper Housekeeper	36 30	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 5 years	St Pauls Church Dunedin	72/1730		30 August 1872	Rev. E.G. Edwards
150	6 September 1872	Thomas Elliot Jessie McLeod	Thomas Elliot Jessie McLeod 💍 1872/6839	Bachelor Spinster	Mason	32 22	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 4 years	In the House of Revd John Gow Dunedin	72/1744		6 September 1872	Rev. John Gow
151	6 September 1872	William Anderson Margaret Slymand Glover	William Anderston Margaret Slymand Glover 💍 1872/8954	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 14	Peninsula Peninsula	15 years 8 years	In the House of George Poole Bell Northeast Harbour	72/2172	Margaret Bell, Mother	6 September 1872	Rev. Alexander Greig
152	7 September 1872	Michael Connellan Martha Mary Meade	Michael Connellan Martha Mary Meade 💍 1872/3606	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Dressmaker	30 29	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 2 years	St Josephs Church Dunedin	72/1704		7 September 1872	Rev. Patrick Moran
153	12 September 1872	Charles James Harris Sarah Jane Cull	Charles James Harris Robertson Sarah Jane Cull 💍 1872/6797	Widower Spinster	Barkeeper	29 21	Dunedin Dunedin	11 years 4 years	St Pauls Church Dunedin	72/1731		12 September 1872	Rev. E.G. Edwards
154	13 September 1872	Richard Carter Jane Laidlaw	Richard Carter Jane Laidlaw 💍 1872/7124	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Cook	26 23	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 5 years	In the House of Mrs Hall Waverly House Moray Place Dunedin	72/1840		13 September 1872	Rev. Dn Stuart
155	13 September 1872	Robert Puffle Annie M. Intyre Mercer	Robert Ruflett Annie McIntyre Mercer 💍 1872/5534	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	26 19	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 19 years	In the House of Andrew Mercer High Street, Dunedin	72/1305	A. Mercer, father	13 September 1872	Rev. William Bannerman
156	16 September 1872	John Charles Johnston Mary Houston	John Charles Johnston Mary Houston 💍 1872/7127	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	27 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 8 years	In the House of John Houston Great King Street Dunedin	72/1841		16 September 1872	Rev. Dn Stuart, D.D.

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).