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 725

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 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
19	8 January 1873	Louis Davies Catherine Duncan	Louis Daires Catherine Duncan 💍 1873/6127	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier Servant	40 36	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 years	Knox Church	73/445		22 January 1873	Rev. D.M. Stuart D.D.
21	9 January 1873	James Nicolson Prudence Williams	James Nicolson Prudence Williams 💍 1873/6133	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	30 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	Knox Church	73/1147		25 January 1873	Rev. D.M. Stuart D.D.
22	15 January 1873	Henry Lincoln Pratt Mary Fraser	Henry Lincoln Pratt Mary Fraser 💍 1873/6151	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	32 17	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 8 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	73/1153	Mary Fraser, mother	27 January 1873	The Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
23	16 January 1873	Thomas Fraser Julia Isabelle Swinmell	Thomas Fraser McPherson Julia Isabella Gwinnell 💍 1873/5168	Bachelor Spinster	Builder	32 28	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 1 month	St Paul's Church	73/117		28 January 1873	Rev. C.G. Edwards
24	17 January 1873	Lancelot Booth Elizabeth Frances Elham	Lancelot Booth Elizabeth Frances Eltham 💍 1873/6136	Bachelor Spinster	Actor Actress	27 20	Dunedin Dunedin	10 months 19 months	In The Union Hotel	73/1148	hopereson toque consent	28 January 1873	Rev. D.M. Stuart D.D.
25	20 January 1873	Robert Fenwick Margaret McThee	Robert Fenwick Margaret McPhee 💍 1873/6250	Widower Spinster	Hotelkeeper	57 40	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 2 years	All Saints Church	73/1286		30 January 1873	Rev. E.G. Granger
26	3 February 1873	William Saylor Emily Jessie Edwards	William Taylor Emily Jessie 💍 1873/8641	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 17	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the home of Rev. John Gor	73/1300		20 February 1873	Rev. John Gor
27	3 February 1873	Patrick McGarmon Sarah Steel	Patrick McGannon Sarah Steel 💍 1873/8644	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 29	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 8 years	In the home of William Edmonds Dunedin	73/1301		22 February 1873	Rev. D.M. Stuart D.D.

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).