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 758

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
312	13 October 1874	Charles Daily Pearce Elizabeth Matheson	Charles Davey Pearce Elizabeth Mathieson 💍 1874/12874	Bachelor Spinster	Ironmoulder	26 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 14 years	In the house of Robert Weelin George St	2395		13 October 1874	Rev. Dr Stuart
313	14 October 1874	Alexander Campbell Eliza Bailey	Alexander Campbell Eliza Bayley 💍 1874/14038	Bachelor Widow	Carrier Boarding Housekeeper	38 years 32 years	Dunedin Dunedin	14 day 3 years	In St Josephs R.C. Church	2798		14 October 1874	Rev. Bishop Moran
314	14 October 1874	George Green Sarah Pennock	George Green Sarah Pinnock 💍 1874/13909	Bachelor Spinster	Fisherman Domestic	25 years 21 years	Otago Peninsula Otago Peninsula	7 years 7 years	In the house of William Cookes Jolly Otago Peninsula	2752		14 October 1874	Rev. Alexander Gregg
315	15 October 1874	Robert Mutton Marion Gray	Robert Hutton Marion Craig 💍 1874/12877	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	25 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 1 month	In the house of Ronald McLachlan	2396		15 October 1874	Rev. John Gow
316	15 October 1874	Sydney Herbert Danis Mary Jane Brout	Sydney Herbert Davies Mary Jane Bisset 💍 1874/13333	Bachelor Widow	Gentleman	36 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 weeks 9 months	Standard Dome Church Dunedin	2551		15 October 1874	Rev. Dr Stuart
317	15 October 1874	John Edward Costello Victoria Julia Frances	John Edward Wheeler Victoria Julia Francis 💍 1874/12880	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Schoolmistress	23 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 3 months	In the house of the Rev. Dr Stuart Dunedin	2397	[UNCLEAR] hoperson to give consent	15 October 1874	Rev. Dr Stuart
318	16 October 1874	William Henry Harris Fanny Eliza Searce	William Henry Harris Fanny Eliza Serle 💍 1874/13159	Bachelor Spinster	Brewer	32 years 17 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 8 months	All Saints Church Dunedin	2463	[UNCLEAR] hoperson to give consent	16 October 1874	Rev. R Stanford
319	19 October 1874	Robert Bolton Jane Murphy	Robert Bolton Jane Murphy 💍 1874/13789	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	24 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 6 months	Presbyterian Church at Green Island	2710		19 October 1874	Rev. Mural Croft

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).