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 752

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 September 1874

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
264	25 August 1874	David Ferguson Emma Caroline Yates	David Ferguson Emma Caroline Gates 💍 1874/10246	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	30 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 3 weeks	In the house of W. D. Sutherland, George Street, Dunedin	1488		25 August 1874	Rev. Dr. Stuart
265	25 August 1874	James Wilson Alice Cumberbeach	James Wilson Alice Cumberbeach 💍 1874/10243	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	36 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 weeks	In the house of Mr. J. Swan, London Street, Dunedin	1487	Jane Barnett, mother	25 August 1874	Rev. J.H. McNaughton
266	25 August 1874	Edgeworth Richard Ussher Jane Stewart	Edgworth Richard Usher Jane Stewart 💍 1874/9412	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	33 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 10 years	In the house of Mr. Alexander Stewart, Brown Street, Dunedin	1207		26 August 1874	Registrar of Marriages
267	26 August 1874	Samuel Bowden Hill Emily Milton Phillips	Samuel Bowden Hill Emily Milton Phillips 💍 1874/9922	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	25 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 1 year	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	1379		26 August 1874
268	27 August 1874	Thomas Broadley Amelia Horne	Thomas Broadley Amelia Horne 💍 1874/9538	Bachelor Spinster	Woolen Engineer	23 years 24 years	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 9 months	In St. Paul's Church, Stuart Street, Dunedin	1249		27 August 1874	Rev. E. G. Edwards
269	28 August 1874	James McAdie Isabella McCallum	James McAdie Isella McAllum 💍 1874/10249	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	35 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 days	In the British Hotel, George Street, Dunedin	1489		28 August 1874	Rev. Dr. Stuart
270	31 August 1874	Henry Heasman Ellen Carbeary	Henry Hoodman Ellen Carbeary 💍 1874/9526	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer Dressmaker	20 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 7 months	In St. Paul's Church, Dunedin	1245	No consent	31 August 1874	Rev. E. G. Edwards
271	31 August 1874	Edward Barnard Wilks Jukes Cecilia Eliza Mulliner	Bernard Wilkes Jukes Cecilia Eliza Mulliner 💍 1874/9631	Bachelor Spinster	Packer	29 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	5 weeks 5 weeks	In the Congregational Church, Moray Place, Dunedin	1282	No consent	31 August 1874	Rev. Dr. Roseby

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).