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 729

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
34	26 January 1875	Robert Wilson Matilda Edgar	Robert Wilson Matilda Edgar 💍 1875/173	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Dressmaker	27 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	13 years 10 years	In the house of James Edgar Great King Street Dunedin	75/206		26 January 1875	Revd O. Stuart
35	25 January 1875	Duncan Lennox McFarlane Ann Bateman	Duncan Lennox McFarlane Ann Bateman 💍 1875/161	Bachelor Spinster	Brickmaker Servant	32 years 25 years	Caversham Caversham	4 years 6 months	In Knox Church Dunedin	75/214		17 February 1875	Revd O. Stuart
35A	26 January 1875	Robert Shand Emily Alleyn	Robert Shand Emily Alleyn 💍 1875/172	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	30 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 4 months	In the house of Albert Hamann South Street Dunedin	75/205		26 January 1875	Revd O. Stuart
36	27 January 1875	Thomas Osman Margaret Barr	Thomas Drennan Margaret Bain 💍 1875/157 Thomas Graham Margaret Ward 💍 1875/1355 Thomas Dean Margaret Reid 💍 1876/572 Thomas Donald Margaret Fraser 💍 1875/135 Thomas Wallon Margaret Omeara 💍 1875/430 Thomas Thomahan Margaret Mortel 💍 1875/1041 Thomas Webb Margaret Dunne 💍 1875/2495 Thomas Aldridge Margaret Carroll 💍 1876/347 Thomas Keily Margaret McGuire 💍 1875/1662	Bachelor Spinster	Wheelwright	30 years 29 years	Mornington Mornington	12 months 10 days	In the house of William Barr Mornington	75/213		27 January 1875	Revd O. Stuart
37	28 January 1875	John Thomas Jelley Mary Ann Bruggie	John Thomas Jelley Mary Ann Briggs 💍 1875/154	Widower Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	41 years 30 years	Dunedin Dunedin	14 years 2 years	In the house of the said John Thomas Jelley Dunedin	75/210		28 January 1875	Revd O. Stuart
38	29 January 1875	Edward Constantine Chilton Margaretta Laist Eadie	Edward Chilton Margaret Edith Eddie 💍 1875/175	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	35 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 12 months	In the house of Albert Barnes 12 Clarendon Street Dunedin	75/208	No person to give consent	29 January 1875	Revd O. Stuart
39	29 January 1875	Charles Messier Mary Ann Murray	Charles Heresier Mary Ann Murray 💍 1875/174	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	22 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	14 months 14 months	In the house of Robert Barnes 12 Clarendon Street Dunedin	75/207	No person to give consent	29 January 1875	Revd O. Stuart

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).