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 744

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 1865

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
131	7 April 1865	John White Elizabeth Bremner	John White Elizabeth Bremner 💍 1875/1379	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	34 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 year 14 years	In the house of James White, Great King Street, Dunedin	75/1457		7 April 1865	Rev. R.L. Stuart
132	8 April 1865	Thomas Kennedy Johanna Robertson	Thomas Kennedy Douglas Johanna Robertson 💍 1875/1493	Bachelor Spinster	Medical Practitioner	27 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 weeks 4 days	In the house of Mr. Reynolds, near Dunedin	75/1561		8 April 1865	Rev. John Gow
133	8 April 1865	Walter Ibbotson Martha Sampson	Walter Ibbotson Martha Sampson 💍 1875/1531	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	21 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	12 months 2 years	St. Matthew's Church, Dunedin	75/1504	person to give no consent	8 April 1865	Rev. E. H. Stacey
134	12 April 1865	Hector Reid Selina Wood Collie	Hector Reid Eliza Todd Collie 💍 1875/1753	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	37 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 years	In the house of the Rev. Lindsay Mackay	75/1596		12 April 1865	Rev. Lindsay Mackay
135	12 April 1865	Robert Eugene Marking Louisa Horsley	Robert Eugene Markby Louisa Horsley Rowland 💍 1875/306	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	22 years 17 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 7 months	In the house of Mary Hood, Hanover Street, Dunedin	75/1341	person to give no consent	12 April 1865	Rev. R. L. Stacey
136	12 April 1865	John Fogarity Hannah Stacia		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	28 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	7 days 7 days	St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin	75/1576	person to give no consent	12 April 1865	Right Rev. Bishop Moran
137	12 April 1865	Thomas Pickering Emma Susannah Warwick	Thomas Pickering Channon Emma Susannah Warwick 💍 1875/1516	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	30 years 18 years	Caversham Caversham	8 months 18 years	St. Paul's Church, Dunedin	75/1490	Olivia Craig, mother	12 April 1865	Rev. E. J. Edwards
138	13 April 1865	John Arthur Orbell Mary Ann McLiverin	John Arthur Orbell Mary Ann McGiverin 💍 1875/1416	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	21 years 28 years	Dunedin Dunedin	13 years 1 day	St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin	75/1551		13 April 1865	Right Rev. Bishop Moran

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).