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 738

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 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
84	11 April 1873	Peter Anderson Euphemia Bruce	Peter Anderson Euphemia Bruce 💍 1873/7126	Widower Spinster	Boatman	32 24	Dunedin Dunedin	14 days 2 years	Knox Church	73/789		13 April 1873	Rev. Dn. Stuart
87	22 April 1873	Carl Hagen Marie Petermann	Carl Hagen Marie Petermann 💍 1873/7129	Bachelor Spinster	Photographer Weaver	28 18	Dunedin Dunedin	5 days 5 days	Knox Church	73/790		22 April 1873	Rev. Dn. Stuart
88	19 April 1873	Alexander Battyate Fanny Gibson Winton	Alexander Bathgate Fanny Gibson Turton 💍 1873/4630	Bachelor Spinster	Solicitor	28 27	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 week	St Pauls Church	73/776		19 April 1873	Rev. E.G. Edwards
90	22 April 1873	Jack Lachman Mary Ann Stewart	Joseph Lachman Mary Ann Stewart 💍 1873/7408	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	33 19	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 4 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	73/883	Alex Stewart Father	22 April 1873	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
91	23 April 1873	Sydney Goldsmith Sarah Jones	Sydney Goldsmith Sarah Toms 💍 1873/7090	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker	28 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 15 months	St Pauls Church	73/798		23 April 1873	Rev. E.G. Edwards
92	23 April 1873	Alexander Bartleman Christina Bain	Alexander Bartleman Christina Bain 💍 1873/11491	Bachelor Spinster	Bank Inspector	33 19	Dunedin Alva Street, Dunedin	9 years 10 years	In the house of James Paterson	73/804	James Paterson, father	23 April 1873	Rev. John Gow
93	24 April 1873	George Herbert Sarah Franklin	George Herbert Sarah Franklin 💍 1873/7132	Bachelor Spinster	Steward	27 15	Dunedin Smith Street, Dunedin	3 days 5 years	In the house of George Herbert	73/791	Ellen Franklin, mother	24 April 1873	Rev. Dn. Stuart
94	24 April 1873	William Garvey Mary Lawton	William Garvey Mary Lawton 💍 1873/7312	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Servant	35 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 3 years	St Joseph's Church	73/837		24 April 1873	Rev. P. Moran

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).