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 754

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 1875

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
215	22 June 1875	William Hadley Julia Brown	William Hadley Julia Brown 💍 1875/1402	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 6 months	In the Office of the Regr. of Marriages Dunedin	75/1532	No consent	22 June 1875	Regr. of Marriages Dunedin
216	22 June 1875	George Smart Emma Spiwell	George Smart Emma Hipwell 💍 1875/3059	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	21 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	9 years 15 months	"Knox" Church Dunedin	75/1480	No consent	22 June 1875	Revd. Dr. Stuart
217	23 June 1875	William Roberts Florence Maude Brown	William Roberts Florence Maude Brown 💍 1875/2363	Bachelor Spinster	Livery Stable Keeper	26 years 16 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 years 10 years	"St. Paul's" Church Dunedin	75/2185	Laurence Brown, Father	23 June 1875	Revd. J. G. Edwards
218	23 June 1875	James Menzies Matilda Henderson	James Menzies Matilda Henderson 💍 1875/1529	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Servant	28 years 24 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 weeks	In the house of Hugh Fox, Caversham	75/1502		23 June 1875	Revd. V. Rufsell
219	23 June 1875	Thomas Stamford Roscoe Eliza Schaw	Thomas Stanford Roscoe Eliza Schaw 💍 1875/2360	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	48 years 19 years	Dunedin Anderson's Bay	4 days 3 days	"St. Michael's" Church, Anderson's Bay	75/2183		23 June 1875	Bishop Nevill
220	25 June 1875	John Owen Annie Grace Gray	John Owens Annie Grace Gray 💍 1875/1356	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	19 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 1 year	"Knox" Church Dunedin	75/1481	No person to give consent	25 June 1875	Revd. Dr. Stuart
221	26 June 1875	Arthur Shanny Frederick Parker Ann Boyd McLean	Arthur Sidney Frederick Parker Ann Boyd McLean 💍 1875/1358	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	35 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 6 months	In the house of Peter McEwan, Duncan Street Dunedin	75/1472		26 June 1875	Revd. Dr. Stuart
222	28 June 1875	James Brown Mary Ann Ballantyne	James Brown Anne Ballantyne 💍 1875/2357	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer Dressmaker	23 years 23 years	Roslyn Mornington	12 years 1 year	In the house of James Lambourne, Mornington	75/2180		28 June 1875	Revd. J. H. Bates

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 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).