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 765

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
368	9 December 1874	Frank Rutter Annie Manew	Frank Rutter Annie Mander 💍 1874/12982	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	29 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 4 years	St Pauls Church Stuart Street	2432		9 December 1874	Rev. G Edwards
369	11 December 1874	James Jamieson Campbell Isabella Laing	James Jameson Campbell Isabella Laing 💍 1874/12970	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	29 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	12 years 15 years	In the Office of the Registrar of marriages Dunedin	74/2428		11 December 1874	Wm Parker Street
370	14 December 1874	Azzanta Nicola Susan Cope	Nicola Azzariti Susan Cope 💍 1874/12973	Bachelor Spinster	Fisherman Domestic Servant	38 years 22 years	Portobello Dunedin	6 years 6 months	In the Office of the Registrar of marriages Dunedin	74/2429		14 December 1874	Wm Parker Street
371	14 December 1874	Sydney Johns Lyon Mary Elizabeth Healy	Sidney John Lyon Mary Elizabeth Tulley 💍 1874/13174	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor	23 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 2 years	All Saints Church Dunedin	74/2498		14 December 1874	Rev. R.H. Stanford
372	15 December 1874	John Henderson Janet Bell	John Henderson Janet Bell 💍 1874/12979	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Servant	38 years 35 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 weeks 6 weeks	In the house of Mr Story Graham Street Dunedin	2431		15 December 1874	Rev. Dr Stuart
373	16 December 1874	Albert Walter Geddes Susan Findlater	Albert Walter Geddes Susan Forrester Findlater 💍 1874/13168	Bachelor Spinster	Fruiterer	30 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	11 years 2.5 years	All Saints Church Dunedin	74/2496		16 December 1874	Rev. D. Stuart
374	18 December 1874	William Sparrow Maria Barnett Sarah Lurkes Cottrell	William Spencer Maria Barnett Sarah Luckes Cottrell 💍 1874/12988	Bachelor Spinster	Clothiers Saleswoman	22 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 12 months	In the house of Mr Alfred Cottrell Great King St Dunedin	74/2434	Alfred Wm Cottrell Father	18 December 1874	Rev. C W Rigg
375	21 December 1874	John Way U'Ren Mary Ann Perriman	John Way U'Ren Mary Ann Perriman 💍 1875/193	Bachelor Spinster	Machinist	24 years 21 years	Kensington Dunedin	6 years 9 years	In the house of George Perriman Corn dealer Stafford Street Dunedin	75/123		21 December 1874	Rev. C W Rigg

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).