Intentions to Marry, 1874

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840386, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 722

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
48	7 February 1874	John Davis Annie Arnold	John Davis Annie Arnold 💍 1874/7156	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	22 21	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 10 years	In Knox Church Dunedin	74/433		7 February 1874	Rev. Dr. Stuart
155	4 February 1874	James Hewry Clayton Baronne Waymouth	James Henry Clayton Caroline Waymouth 💍 1874/13120	Bachelor Spinster	Publisher	23 21	Dunedin Dunedin	7 years 8 years	In All Saints Church	2490		4 February 1874	Rev. R. L. Stanford
156	4 February 1874	George Frederick Mayhew Agnes Richardson	George Frederick Mayhew Agnes Richardson 💍 1874/7162	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	31 21	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 3 days	In the house of Geo Fred. Mayhew	74/435		4 February 1874	Rev. Dr. Stuart
157	5 February 1874	Frederick Chambers Elizabeth Skeats	Frederick Chambers Elizabeth Skeats 💍 1874/7153	Widower Widow	Coal Merchant	48 35	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 3 months	In Knox Church Dunedin	74/432		5 February 1874	Rev. Dr. Stuart
159	9 February 1874	Thomas John Bowden Martha Knight	Thomas John Bowden Martha Knight 💍 1874/7159	Bachelor Spinster	Jockey	21 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of Robt. Creighton	74/434		9 February 1874	Rev. Dr. Stuart
160	9 February 1874	John Fishenden Jane Ferguson	Carl Hansen Jane Ferguson 💍 1874/6577	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	28 22	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 3 days	See the house of the Rev. Dr. Stuart	74/436		9 February 1874	Rev. Dr. Stuart
161	10 February 1874	William Noble Sarah Bayler	William Nobel Sarah Baxter 💍 1874/7171 William Prouse Sarah Ann Farmer 💍 1875/399	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	23 22	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 10 days	In the house of John McKechnie	74/438		10 February 1874	Rev. D. M. Stuart. D. D.
162	10 February 1874	John McLaren Jane Mollison	John McLaren Jane Mollison 💍 1874/13249	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	26 25	Dunedin Dunedin	8 years 8 years	In the house of John Mollison	2523		10 February 1874	Rev. Jno Gow
163	11 February 1874	Charles Gillespie Isabella Merrilees Neil	Charles Gillespie Isabella Merrilees Neill 💍 1874/7240	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	23 18	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of Peter McAllister	74/463	James Neil, father	11 February 1874	Rev. Dr. Stuart

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 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).