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 740

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 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
114	25 March 1875	Archibald Blair Emily Ford	Archibald Blair Emily Hood 💍 1875/630	Widower Spinster	Mounted Constable	36 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 10 days	In the house of David Ford, Stafford Street, Dunedin	75/406		25 March 1875	Revd. John Allan Craig
115	25 March 1875	Richard Coils Eliza Cook	Richard Wills Eliza Cook 💍 1875/2418	Bachelor Widow	Blacksmith Domestic Servant	47 years 34 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 4 days	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	75/530		25 March 1875	Mr. H. Mansford, Registrar
116	25 March 1875	John Shephard Mary Ann Guinn	John Sheppard Mary Ann Gunn 💍 1875/1427 John Stewart Mary Ann Black 💍 1876/3043 John Cleary Mary Ann Edser 💍 1875/2198 John Lampard Mary Anne Emboury 💍 1875/384	Widower Spinster	Farmer	47 years 33 years	Portobello Portobello	13 years 2 weeks	In the house of the said John Shephard, Portobello	75/1525		25 March 1875	Revd. E. Penny
117	27 March 1875	Henry Joseph Pratt Emma Mary Ralston	Henry Joseph Pratt Emma Mary Raleston 💍 1875/602	Widower Widow	Cabinet Maker	43 years 33 years	Port Chalmers Dunedin	2 months 2 months	In St. Matthew's Church, Dunedin	75/409		27 March 1875	Revd. W. Coleman
118	29 March 1875	John Power Mary Graham	John Power Mary Graham 💍 1875/432 Louis Anderson Mary Graham 💍 1875/57	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Machinist	27 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 7 months	In the house of the Revd. Robert Rattray, Street	75/475		29 March 1875	Revd. E. Edwards
119	30 March 1875	Arthur Thomby Sarah Mary Ann Knewstubb	Arthur Hornby Sarah May Ann Kurnostubb 💍 1875/243	Bachelor Spinster	Publican Domestic Servant	23 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 3 years	In St. Paul's Church, Dunedin	75/248	Thomas Knewstubb, father	30 March 1875	Revd. E. Edwards
120	30 March 1875	James Bearden Bridget Sullivan	James Spederi Bridget Sullivan 💍 1875/433	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	30 years 29 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 10 days	In St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin	75/476		30 March 1875	Revd. W. Coleman
121	30 March 1875	William Forsyth Elizabeth Whitton	William Forsyth Elizabeth Whitton 💍 1875/1378	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor Domestic Servant	24 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 9 months	In the house of Mrs. Elizabeth Chambers, Stafford Street, Dunedin	75/1150	Edward Whitton, father	30 March 1875	Revd. W. Coleman

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).