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 735

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
149	8 May 1874	Thomas Gillic Louisa Walsh	Thomas Gillie Louisa Welsh 💍 1874/5704 Thomas Callan Louisa Handcock 💍 1874/7834	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	32 32	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 4 years	Knox Church	74/723		8 May 1874	Rev. Dr Stuart
150	9 May 1874	Daniel Newry Cane Amelia Provost	Daniel H Cane Amelia Provost 💍 1874/8953	Widower Spinster	Saddler	52 52	Dunedin Dunedin	12 years 14 years	St Paul's Church	74/704		9 May 1874	Rev. Ed Edwards
151	9 May 1874	Matthew Henderson Janet Gray	Matthew Henderson Janet Gray 💍 1874/7990	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 23	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 weeks	Scotch Hotel Dundas Street	74/721		9 May 1874	Rev. Dr Stuart
152	11 May 1874	Seth Lloyd Jane Jenkins	Seth Lloyd Jane Jenkins 💍 1874/9355	Bachelor Spinster	Coal Miner	24 21	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 2 weeks	In the house of Peter Roberts	1184		11 May 1874	Rev. M. Watt
153	11 May 1874	Isaac Caseley Julia Powall	Isaac Caseley Julia Powell 💍 1874/7993	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	44 36	Dunedin Dunedin	12 years 2 months	Knox Church	74/722		11 May 1874	Rev. Dr Stuart
154	13 May 1874	John a Yong Jessie Margaret Baxter	John A Tong Jessie Margaret Baxter 💍 1874/8782	Bachelor Spinster	Wood turner	31 20	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 6 months	In the office of the Registrar	74/692	No person to give consent	13 May 1874	Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
155	14 May 1874	John Mitchell Catherine Paterson	John Mitchell Catherine Paterson 💍 1874/8002	Bachelor Spinster	Warehouseman	25 24	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 10 years	Knox Church George Street Dunedin	74/726	Said John Mitchell	14 May 1874	Rev. Dr Stuart
156	15 May 1874	Thomas Bunting Mary Smith	Thomas Bunting Mary Smith 💍 1874/13150	Bachelor	Barman	24 17	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	All Saints Church	2490	No person to give Consent	15 May 1874	Rev. R. Stanford

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).