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 737

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
157	15 May 1874	William Dudley Waghorn Isabella Elizabeth Perrie	William Dudley Woghorn Isabella Elizabeth Pirrie 💍 1874/13288	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	25 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 months	In the House	2536	15 May 1874	Rev. J. Gow
158	15 May 1874	Peter Rutherford Sarah Outram	Peter Rutherford Sarah Outram 💍 1874/11422	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	26 22	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 15 years	High St. Dunedin	1893	15 May 1874	Rev. J. Wadman
159	15 May 1874	James Davidson Bridget Agnes Kirwan	James Davidson Jane Ryan 💍 1874/11956	Bachelor Widow	Butcher	30 30	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 7 years	Royal Terrace Dunedin
160	15 May 1874	Robert Crawford Mary Swansborough	Robert Crawford Mary Swansborough 💍 1874/13291	Bachelor Spinster	Boilermaker	32 22	Dunedin Dunedin	8 years 4 months	Subscription Church	2537	15 May 1874	Rev. P. Lloran
161	15 May 1874	David Wassell Mary Hales	David Wassall Mary Hales 💍 1874/7948	Bachelor Spinster	Stoker Dressmaker	27 25	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 10 years	In Rev. Gow's House, High St		15 May 1874	Rev. J. Gow
162	16 May 1874	Thomas Sherlock Graham Amelia Kelle	Thomas Sherlock Graham Amelia Kettle 💍 1874/8059	Bachelor Spinster	Warehouseman	36 22	Dunedin Dunedin	12 years 22 years	Mr. George Hales House, Stewart St.	74/706	15 May 1874	Rev. Chris
163	18 May 1874	James Matheson Christian McLean	James Matheson Christian Morton Duncan 💍 1874/8005	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	38 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 5 weeks	In the First Church	74/545	16 May 1874	Rev. DM Stewart
164	18 May 1874	Oscar Westcott Mary Ann Short	Oscar Westler Mary Ann Short 💍 1874/11425	Bachelor Spinster	Sailmaker	33 35	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 10 years	Residence, Falite St. Dunedin	74/727	18 May 1874	Rev. DM Sheart

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).