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 727

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
88	13 March 1874	Albert Grafe Jane Peterson	Albert Cross Jane Petersen 💍 1874/7213	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	28 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 years	In the house of Frederick Grafe Royal Terrace Dunedin	74/453	13 March 1874	Rev Wm Stuart
89	16 March 1874	William Ingram Elizabeth Howard Heales	William Ingram Elizabeth Howard Heales 💍 1874/13153	Bachelor Spinster	Brassfinisher	36 36	Dunedin Do	3 years 2 years	In All Saints Church Dunedin	26491	16 March 1874	Rev R L Stanford
90	16 March 1874	Thomas Collins Sarah Welsh	Thomas Collins Sarah Welsh 💍 1874/7258 Thomas Gillie Louisa Welsh 💍 1874/5704	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	25 21	Dunedin do	1 year 6 years	First Church Dunedin	74/470	16 March 1874	Rev E G Edwards
91	16 March 1874	John Johnstone Margaret Black Leslie	John Johnstone Margaret Clark Leslie 💍 1874/7210	Bachelor Spinster	Coachwright	35 21	Milton Dunedin	10 years 1 month	In the house of Thomas Barr Walker Street Dunedin	74/452	16 March 1874	Rev Dr Stuart
92	18 March 1874	Robert Noble Adams Jane Ellen Crichison	Robert Noble Adams Jane Ellen Aitchison 💍 1874/7216	Bachelor Spinster	Reporter	24 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 10 years	In the house of Agnes Adeluson Dowling Street Dunedin	See below No. 94	18 March 1874	Rev Dr Stuart
93	18 March 1874	Donald Reid Sarah Price	Donald Reid Sarah Price 💍 1874/7333	Widower Widow	Farmer	39 38	Tapanui Dunedin	18 years 8 months	In the house of Mrs Sarah Price York Place Dunedin	74/495	18 March 1874	Rev Jas Davidson
94	19 March 1874	Robert Noble Adams Jane Ellen Crichison	Robert Noble Adams Jane Ellen Aitchison 💍 1874/7216	Bachelor Spinster	Reporter Teacher	24 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 10 years	Knox Church	74/454	19 March 1874	Rev Dr Stuart
95	20 March 1874	James Macfie Elizabeth Kay	James MacFie Elizabeth Kaye 💍 1874/14163	Bachelor Spinster	Coal merchant	25 26	Dunedin Dunedin	7 years 10 years	In the house of William Bishap Howe Street DunedinDunedin	74/455	20 March 1874	Rev Dr Stuart
96	21 March 1874	Robert Fleming Elizabeth Lunn	Robert Fleming Elizabeth Lunn 💍 1874/13258	Bachelor Spinster	Cooper	31 23	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 1 year	In the house of Robert Fleming Princes Street Dunedin	2526	21 March 1874	Rev John Gow

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).