Intentions to Marry, 1875

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840387, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 16 2025.

This register is quite fragile and some of the pages are damaged or even missing.

Page 786

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1875 Registrar Marratt

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
392	22 October 1875	William Thomas Smith Catherine Birrell	William Thomas Smith Catharine Birrell 💍 1875/2419	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	31 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 months	In the house of Thomas Brown, North East Valley	75/2531		22 October 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
393	22 October 1875	William Absolon Smith Isabella Darling	William Absolun Smith Isabella Darling 💍 1875/2618	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	26 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 3 years	In the house of Alexander Darling, Frederick St	75/2538		22 October 1875	Revd Lindsay Mackie
394	23 October 1875	William Gordon Catherine McLaren	William Gordon Catherine McLaren 💍 1875/2316 William Bisson Violet Robina McLaren 💍 1875/754	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 years 29 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	75/2499		26 October 1875	The Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin
395	25 October 1875	Joseph King Mary Ann Brinn	Joseph King Mary Ann Brennin 💍 1875/2415	Bachelor Spinster	Clothiers assistant	21 years (in April last) 19 years (in May last)	Caversham Caversham	1 month 2 weeks	In the house of the Revd Dr Stuart, George Street	75/2549	John Brinn, father	25 October 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
396	25 October 1875	James Atkinson Rogers Clara Alice Maud Fowler	James Atkinson Rogers Clara Alice Maud Fowler 💍 1875/2413	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	23 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 9 months	In the house of the Revd Dr Stuart, George Street	75/2541		25 October 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
397	26 October 1875	Andrew Boyes the younger Jennie Blackwood	Andrew Boyes Jennie Blackwood 💍 1875/2715	Bachelor Spinster	Ironmonger	27 years 20 years	Caversham Caversham	5 years 16 years	In the house of William Blackwood, Caversham	75/2977	William Blackwood, father	26 October 1875	Revd I N Russell
398	26 October 1875	Archibald Butters Bridget Sheehane	Archibald Butters Bridget Sheehane 💍 1875/2682	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	36 years 30 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 6 months	In All Saints Church	75/2806		26 October 1875	Revd R L Stanford
399	27 October 1875	John George Millow Hannah China Jarvis	John George Millow Hannah Elvina Jervis 💍 1875/2679	Bachelor Spinster	Stone Mason	26 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 1 year	In All Saints Church	75/2803	John Jarvis, father	27 October 1875	Revd R L Stanford

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).