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 759

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
320	19 October 1874	John Harkin Mary Ann Newman	John Sharkey Mary Ann Smith 💍 1874/10759 John Way U'Ren Mary Ann Perriman 💍 1875/193 John Monnie Mary Ann Martin 💍 1874/9121	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Domestic Servant	30 24	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 2 weeks	St Joseph's Church Dunedin	2796		19 October 1874	Rev Bishop Moran
321	19 October 1874	John Sinclair Amelia Jane Bishop	Jno Sinclair Amelia Jane Bishop 💍 1874/12886	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	36 22	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 10 days	In the house of the Revd Do Stuart George Sheet Dunedin	2549		19 October 1874	Revd Bishop
322	19 October 1874	George Anderson Ann Gail Herd	George Anderson Ann Gall Herd 💍 1874/12889	Bachelor Spinster	Station Manager	27 20	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	St Paul's Church Dunedin	2400		19 October 1874	Revd Archdeacon Edwards
323	20 October 1874	Alexander Drinkwater Maria Langley	Alexander Anderson Hunter Maria Langley 💍 1874/13336	Bachelor Widow	Contractor Hotel Keeper	32 33	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of the Revd John Don Dunedin	2552		20 October 1874	Revd John Don
324	20 October 1874	Alfred Taylor Isabella Ann Hagget	Alfred Taylor Isabella Ann Hogget 💍 1874/12892	Bachelor Spinster	Packer	26 19	Kensington Kensington	2 months 2 months	St Paul's Church Dunedin	2401	Robert Hagget father	20 October 1874	Revd Archdeacon Edwards
325	22 October 1874	Andrew Chisholm Euphemia Anderson	Andrew Chisholm Euphemia Anderson 💍 1874/13339	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Machinist	26 19	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 12 years	In the house of Mr George Holloway the Glen Caversham	2553	[UNCLEAR]person to give consent	22 October 1874	Revd John Don
326	26 October 1874	James Black Marguret Lee	James Black Margaret Teer 💍 1874/12883	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Dressmaker	30 33	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	Knox Church Dunedin	2398		26 October 1874	Rev [UNCLEAR]
327	26 October 1874	Henry Murphy Marguret Gleeson	Henry Murphy Margaret Gleeson 💍 1874/14032	Widower Spinster	Engine Driver	28 25	Dunedin Dunedin	7 years 1 year	St Joseph's Church Dunedin	2797		26 October 1874	Rev Bishop Moran

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).