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 749

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
247	10 August 1874	John Blackie Jane Berry	John Blaikie Jane Berry 💍 1874/10225	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	30 years 32 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 14 days	In the house of Dr Stuart	1480		10 August 1874	Rev Dr Stuart
248	10 August 1874	William McSwan Sarah Moody	William McSwan Sarah Moody 💍 1874/10222	Widower Spinster	Carpenter	40 years 30 years	Dunedin Dunedin	5 days 5 days	In the house of Dr Stuart Dunedin	1479		10 August 1874	Rev Dr Stuart
249	11 August 1874	Thomas Gawn Isabella Clark	Thomas Gawn Isabella Clarke 💍 1874/9523	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler Servant	28 years 26 years	Dunedin Upper Kaikorai	3 days 6 months	In St Pauls Church Dunedin	1245		11 August 1874	Rev E.G. Edwards
250	11 August 1874	Thomas Stirling Shaw Helen Watson	Thomas Stirling Shaw Helen Watson 💍 1874/10228	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	23 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 9 years	In Knox Church Dunedin	1481	James Watson father	11 August 1874	Rev Dr Stuart
251	13 August 1874	John Russell Martha Jackson	John Rupell Martha Jackson 💍 1874/9529	Bachelor Widow	General Dealer	45 years 40 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 7 months	In St Pauls Church, Stuart Street, Dunedin	1246		13 August 1874	Rev E.G. Edwards
252	14 August 1874	Francis Mitchell Fanny Goodall	Frances Mitchell Fanny Goodall 💍 1874/13318	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	31 years 17 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of the Rev John Gow	2546	Charles Goodall father	14 August 1874	Rev John Gow
253	15 August 1874	Thomas James Helena Louisa Smith	Thomas James Gladwin Helena Louisa Smitt 💍 1874/10231	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Dressmaker	26 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	11 weeks 11 weeks	In the house of Mr Newbury	1482		15 August 1874	Rev Dr Stuart
254	17 August 1874	John Evans Lina Griffiths	John Evans Lena Griffiths 💍 1874/9925	Bachelor Spinster	Coalminer	25 years 19 years	Fairfield Caversham	3 days 19 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1380	John Griffiths father	5 September 1874	per Regtr
255	18 August 1874	George Fenwick Jane Atlantic Roudfoot	George Fenwick Jane Atlantic Proudfoot 💍 1874/10237	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	27 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	19 years 8 years	In the house of Mr David Roudfoot, London Street Dunedin	1484		18 August 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).