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 723

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
54	11 February 1874	William While Ridley Emily Carpenter	William White Ridley Emily Carpenter 💍 1874/7579	Bachelor Spinster	Warehouseman	20 21	Dunedin Dunedin	8 years 2 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	74/579	Violetta Ridley, Mother	11 February 1874	Registrar of Marriages
55	13 February 1874	James Stapleton Margaret Pyne	James Stapleton Margaret Pyne 💍 1874/11800	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	32 30	Dunedin Dunedin	9 years 7 years	St Joseph's Church Dunedin	3034		13 February 1874	Rev Dr Moran
56	13 February 1874	Henry William Bowley Jane Kyle	Henry William Bowler Jane Kyle 💍 1874/7174	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	38 35	Dunedin Dunedin	15 days 7 years	In the house of Mrs James Murray, Castle Street	74/439		13 February 1874	Rev Dr Stuart
57	14 February 1874	William Henry Neale Isabella Selby	William Henry Neale Isabella Selby 💍 1874/7237	Widower Spinster	Boot and Shoe Maker	40 20	Dunedin Dunedin	13 years 6 years	In the Wesleyan Trinity Church	74/462	Isaac Selby, Father	14 February 1874	Rev S Rigg
58	18 February 1874	Robert Maggal Christina Bayne	Robert McTaggart Christina Bryne 💍 1874/7309 Robert Lees Christina Young 💍 1874/13252	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	24 21	North East Harbor North East Harbor	8 years 10 years	In the house of Mr Peter Bayne North East Harbor	74/487		18 February 1874	Rev A Groig
59	16 February 1874	Robert Bird Margaret Wood Hall	Robert Bird Martha Hall 💍 1874/8497	Bachelor Spinster	Brickmaker	25 16	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 13 years	In the house of William S Hall Cumberland St. Dunedin	[UNCLEAR]	William Samuel Hall - Father	16 February 1874	Rev B M Stuart
60	16 February 1874	Robert Bird Martha Hall	Robert Bird Martha Hall 💍 1874/8497	Bachelor Spinster	Brickmaker	25 16	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 13 years	In the house of William S Hall Cumberland St. Dunedin	74/398	William Samuel Hall - Father	16 February 1874	Rev B M Stuart
61	18 February 1874	William John Colman Ann Gillespie	William John Colmin Ann Gillespie 💍 1874/7180	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	Knox Church Cumberland Street Dunedin	74/441		18 February 1874	Rev. Dr Stuart
62	18 February 1874	Francis Whitmore Isitt Mary Campbell Purdie	Francis Whitmore Isitt Mary Campbell Purdie 💍 1874/7207	Bachelor Spinster	Clergyman	27 22	Dunedin Upper Kaikorai	3 days 22 years	In the house of Mr Purdie Upper Kaikorai	74/451		18 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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).