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 734

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
64	15 February 1875	Thomas Walen Margaret O'Neil	Thomas Wallon Margaret Omeara 💍 1875/430 Thomas Dean Margaret Reid 💍 1876/572 Thomas Hanson Margaret Phillips 💍 1875/615 Thomas Webb Margaret Dunne 💍 1875/2495 Thomas Thomahan Margaret Mortel 💍 1875/1041 Thomas Drennan Margaret Bain 💍 1875/157 Thomas O'Keefe Margaret Campbell 💍 1875/2527 Thomas Donald Margaret Fraser 💍 1875/135 Thomas Graham Margaret Ward 💍 1875/1355 Thomas Keily Margaret McGuire 💍 1875/1662	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	21 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 12 months	In St Joseph's Church Dunedin	75/1473	No person to give consent	13 February 1875	Right Revd Bishop Moran
65	15 February 1875	Patrick McIntyre Hellen Miller	Patrick McIntyre Helen Miller 💍 1875/3215	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	29 years 24 years	Dunedin Glenore	4 months 23 years	In the house of Walter Miller	75/1338	Sarah Ann Miller, mother	15 February 1875	Revd James Christie
66	18 February 1875	Thomas Fordyce Emily Jane Scott	Thomas Fordyce Emily McFee 💍 1875/303	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	39 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	14 years 3 days	In the house of the said Thomas Fordyce	75/1403		18 February 1875	Revd T. Roseby
67	18 February 1875	William Newton Grace McFarlane	William H Mason Grace McFarlane 💍 1875/291	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Domestic Servant	29 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 months 6 months	In the house of Captain Hugh Paterson Pelichet Bay Dunedin	75/1403		18 February 1875	Revd T. Roseby
68	19 February 1875	Peter Ayton Elspeth Fraser Robertson	Peter Ayson Elizabeth Frances Robertson 💍 1875/627	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	41 years 36 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of the Revd John Lea High Street Dunedin	75/3184		19 February 1875	Revd John Lea
69	22 February 1875	Andrew Christie Mary Garland	Andrew Christie Mary Garland Florence Christopher 💍 1875/2951	Bachelor Spinster	Cattle Dealer	21 years 19 years	Peninsula Peninsula	3 1/4 years 7 months	In the house of James Christie	75/3185	Maria Florence Christopher, Mother	22 February 1875	Revd Alexander Greig
70	23 February 1875	John Small Jane Irving	John Smaill Jane Irving 💍 1875/2953	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 years 19 years	Tomahawk Peninsula	14 years 8 years	In the house of Mr Richard Laming Portobello Road	75/3185	Richard Irving, father	23 February 1875	Revd Alexander Greig
71	24 February 1875	James Donald Jane Campbell	James Donald Jane Campbell 💍 1875/304 James Cochrane Jane Campbell 💍 1875/1241 Edward John Pollard Jane Campbell 💍 1875/1153 Joseph Thomas Squire Jane Campbell 💍 1875/896	Bachelor Spinster	Ironmoulder	21 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 7 years	In the house of Mr Dugald Campbell Union Street Dunedin	75/1339		24 February 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
72	24 February 1875	Henry Collen Elizabeth Blair	Henry Collins Elizabeth Blair 💍 1875/2440	Widower Widow	Grocer Housekeeper	38 years 41 years	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 6 months	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages	75/2525		24 February 1875	Registrar Births Deaths & Marriages

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).