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 763

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
352	23 November 1874	Francis Elliott Emilie Fauvel	Francis Elliot Emilie Fauvel 💍 1874/12931	Bachelor Spinster	Fruiterer	36 35	Dunedin Dunedin	12 years 12 years	In the house of the Revd D Stuart George Street Dunedin	74/2415	23 November 1874	Revd D Stuart
353	24 November 1874	Peter Lang Mary Ann Eliza Turnbull	Peter Lang Mary Ann Eliza Millbank 💍 1874/13342	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner General Servant	28 24	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 weeks	In the house of Alexander Graham	2534	24 November 1874	Revd John Gow
354	25 November 1874	James Grady Ann Howard	James O'Grady Ann Howard 💍 1874/14047	Bachelor Widow	Laborer Dressmaker	41 40	Dunedin Dunedin	6 weeks 10 years	In St Josephs Chapel Dunedin	2801	25 November 1874	Revd Bishop Moran
355	25 November 1874	Robert Knowles Eliza Jane Wilson	Robert Knowles Eliza Jane Wilson 💍 1874/12964	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	22 32	Dunedin Dunedin	5 months 12 years	In the Baptist Church Hanover Street Dunedin	2426	26 November 1874	Revd J U Davies
356	25 November 1874	James Pickard Janet Taylor	James Pickard Janet Taylor 💍 1874/12934	Widower Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Servant	39 34	Dunedin Dunedin	15 months 3 days	In the house of the Revd Dr Stuart George Street Dunedin	2416	25 November 1874	Revd Dr Stuart
357	26 November 1874	Joseph Fielder Dean Catherine Mary Colbert	Joseph Fielder Dean Catherine Mary Colbert 💍 1874/12940	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	23 21	Dunedin Dunedin	12 years 6 months	In the house of William King Great King Street Dunedin	2418	26 November 1874	Revd Dr Stuart
358	27 November 1874	William Henry Elyabekh Carson	William Henry Elizabeth Carson 💍 1874/12937	Bachelor Spinster	Coachbuilder Machinist	23 23	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 6 months	In the house of the Revd Dr Stuart George Street Dunedin	2417	27 November 1874	Revd Dr Stuart
359	29 November 1874	Micheal Peacock Kata Kapo	Michael Peacock Keiti Kape 💍 1874/12958	Widower Widow	Farmer	50 25	Otago Heads Otago Heads	1 week 3 months	In the house of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	2425	29 November 1874	Wm Parker Street

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).