Intentions to Marry, 1873

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840385, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 4 2024

Page 748

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 September 1873

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
158	7 July 1873	George Stephenson Mary Blyth Hermand	George Timothy Stephenson Mary Blyth Stenhouse 💍 1873/7201	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	20 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 1 day	In the home of H.B. Stenhouse	73/814		7 July 1873	Rev. D. M. Stuart D.D.
159	7 July 1873	John Bartlett Catherine Trennan	John Bartlett Dugan Catherine Brennan 💍 1873/7342 John Arroll Catherine McDonald 💍 1873/10663	Bachelor Spinster	Waiter	29 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 3 years	In St. Joseph's Church	73/861		7 July 1873	Rev. Patrick Geogham
160	8 July 1873	Archm. Foord Helen Miller	Arthur Foord Helen Miller 💍 1873/11212	Bachelor Spinster	Coal proprietor Housemaid	29 20	Dunedin Dunedin	7 years 7 years	In the house of a Foord, Cumberland Street, Dunedin	73/2190		8 July 1873	Rev. A. Reid
161	8 July 1873	James Crawford Margaret Miller	James Crawford Margaret Miller 💍 1873/7204	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber	34 26	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 6 years	In the home of Alex. Paterson, Howe St.	73/815		8 July 1873	Rev. D. Mc. Stuart D.D.
162	9 July 1873	David Barnett Eliza Adams	David Burnett Eliza Adams 💍 1873/7345	Bachelor Spinster	Coal Merchant	40 24	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 3 days	In St. Joseph's Church	73/862		9 July 1873	Rev. P. Moran
163	10 July 1873	Michael Donnelly Mary McCormicke	Michael Turney Mary McDonald 💍 1873/5635	Bachelor Spinster	Cabdriver	26 17	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	St. Joseph's Church	73/863		10 July 1873	The Right Rev. P. Moran
164	11 July 1873	Malcolm Carmichael Maggie McCallum	Malcolm Carmichael Martha McCallum 💍 1873/7219	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman Servant	29 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 18 months	In the home of Hugh Paterson, Dunedin	73/820	Henry McCormick, Father	11 July 1873	Rev. D. M. Smart
165	14 July 1873	Charles Cruikshanks Martha McKay	Charles Cruickshank Martha McKay 💍 1873/7384	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	25 24	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 5 years	St. Vincent Hotel, King St. Dunedin	73/875		14 July 1873	Rev. D. M. Stuart D.D.
166	16 July 1873	William Sutton Margaret Henderson Stevenson	William Sutton Margaret Stevenson 💍 1873/7207	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	27 19	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 4 years	In the home of H.D. Stevenson, George Street	73/816	Alex. Stevenson, Father	16 July 1873	Rev. D. Mc. Stuart D.D.
169	22 July 1873	Samuel Morrison Elizabeth H. Armstrong	Samuel Morrison Elizabeth McAnergeny 💍 1873/11053	Bachelor Spinster	Warder	27 21	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 2 years	St. Paul's Church	73/2134		22 July 1873	Ven. Archdeacon Edwards. V
170	22 July 1873	John Reid Jelilia Wilson	John Reid Letitia Wilson 💍 1873/8707	Bachelor Widow	Bookmaker	39 32	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 3 days	In the office of Regr. of Marr.	73/1224		22 July 1873	The Deputy Registrar

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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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).