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 743

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
130	6 June 1873	Thomas Pine Ellen Leary	Thomas Pine Ellen Leary 💍 1873/7096	Widower Widow	Labourer Machinist	30 years 34 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 1 year	St Pauls Church Dunedin	73/780		6 June 1873	Rev E G Edwards
131	6 June 1873	Alexander Fleming Susan Raismith	Alexander Fleming Susan Naismith 💍 1873/7423	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman Spinster	30 years 32 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 20 months	In the office of Deputy Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	73/788		6 June 1873	Deputy Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
132	9 June 1873	Edward Holmes Maria Talbot	Edward Holmes Maria Talbot 💍 1873/7099	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	32 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	7 years 3 years	St Pauls Church Dunedin	73/781		9 June 1873	Rev D M Stuart
133	9 June 1873	John De Jang Sophia Hogans	John De Jang Sophia Nogans 💍 1873/7162	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	27 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 6 months	In Knox Church Dunedin	73/801		9 June 1873	Rev D M Stuart
134	10 June 1873	George Stephen Robertson Emma Edgar	George Stephen Robertson Emma Edgar 💍 1873/7174	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 12 years	In the house of James Edgar George Street Dunedin	73/805	James Edgar	10 June 1873	Rev D M Stuart
135	10 June 1873	William Couling Sarah Annie Jones	William Cowling Sarah Annie Jones 💍 1873/7165 William Dunn Margaret Jane Jones 💍 1873/5620	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	25 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	7 years 2 years	In St Vincent Hotel Rattray St Dunedin	73/802		10 June 1873	Rev D M Stuart
136	11 June 1873	Roger Furlong Mary Ingram	Roger Furlong Mary Ingram 💍 1873/7168	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Bookfolder	36 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 3 years	In Knox Church Dunedin	73/803		11 June 1873	Rev D M Stuart
137	13 June 1873	Thomas Cross Elicea Grant	Thomas Cross Elicia Grant 💍 1873/7114	Bachelor Spinster	Cabman Barmaid	25 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 6 years	In All Saints Church Dunedin	73/783		13 June 1873	Ven R H Stanford

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).