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 625

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
200	29 November 1872	Thomas Neylon Kate O'Brien	Thomas Neylon Kate O'Brien 💍 1872/6737	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Housemaid	25 years 30 years	Kensington Dunedin	12 months 2 years	In St Joseph's Church	72/11/410		29 November 1872	Rev. Jeremiah O'Donoran
201	29 November 1872	Samuel Brian Gibson Anna Harriett Mason	Samuel Brian Gibson Anna Henrietta Mason 💍 1872/8939	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	24 years 20 years	Caversham Deborah Bay	1 year 10 years	In St Paul's Church	72/24/466		23 December 1872	Rev. E. G. Edwards
202	3 December 1872	William Brown Catherine Glandinning	William Brown Catherine Glendinning 💍 1872/8972 William Brown Mary Ann Dalton 💍 1872/9359	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	22 years 25 years	Anderson's Bay Anderson's Bay	6 months 3 years	In the House of Thomas Brown Andersons Bay	72/22/478		23 December 1872	Rev. J. H. McNaughton
203	4 December 1872	Julien Bretson Mary Ann Duckworth	Julian Beetson Mary Duckworth 💍 1872/8969	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	25 years 23 years	Blueskin Anderson's Bay	2 months 12 months	In the House of Robert Duckworth Anderson's Bay	72/24/477		18 December 1872	Rev. J. H. McNaughton
204	5 December 1872	Thomas Scurr Helen Miller	Thomas Scurr Helen Miller 💍 1872/8948	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	30 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 3 years	In the House of William Milton Mornington	72/24/469		5 December 1872	Rev. John Gow
205	5 December 1872	John Crossan Isabella McArthur	John Crossan Isabella McArthur 💍 1872/7256	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	72/11/482	[UNCLEAR] [UNCLEAR] No person to give consent	5 December 1872	William Parker Street Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
206	9 December 1872	Edward Dowsey Hannah McLean	Edward Jowsey Hannah McLean 💍 1872/8936	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	23 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 3 years	In St Pauls Church	72/24/465		9 December 1872	Rev. E. G. Edwards
207	9 December 1872	Thomas Charles Robson Sophia Sutton	Thomas Charles Robson Sophia Sutton 💍 1872/6914	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	24 years 17 years	Dunedin Dunedin	9 years 11 years	In the House of [UNCLEAR] Reid Dunedin	72/17/470	Mary Ann Sutton Mother	9 December 1872	Rev. A. Reid

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).