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 789

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
416	15 November 1875	John Bishop Anne Morris	John Bishop Annie Morris 💍 1875/2541	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Dressmaker	29 22	Peninsula Peninsula	7 years 10 years	St Pauls Church Dunedin	75/2431	15 November 1875	Revd E & Edwards
417	15 November 1875	Andrew Tulloch Elizabeth Burrows	Andrew Tulloch Elizabeth Burrows 💍 1875/2789	Bachelor Widow	Mariner Domestic Servant	33 34	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 6 months	In the house of Revd Dr Stuart George Street Dunedin	75/2535	15 November 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
418	16 November 1875	Charles Blanck Maren Rustad		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	28 22	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 3 years	In Knox Church Dunedin	75/2554	16 November 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
419	19 November 1875	Thomas Hickey Bridget Green	Thomas Hickey Bridget Green 💍 1875/2719	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	32 30	East Taieri Dunedin	7 years 3 days	In St Joseph East Taieri Church	75/2922	19 November 1875	Revd Wm Coleman
420	19 November 1875	George Thomas Smith Mary Ann North	George Thomas Smitt Mary Ann Nortt 💍 1875/2793 George Tom Thorp Mary Ann Purdy 💍 1876/342	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	21 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 1 year	In the house of Revd Dr Stuart George Street Dunedin	75/2559	19 November 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
421	19 November 1875	Henry William Hope Annie King	Henry William Hope Annie King 💍 1875/2318	Bachelor Spinster	Law Clerk	23 23	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 8 months	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	75/2507	19 November 1875	The Registrar of Marriages Dunedin
422	22 November 1875	Isaac Perriton Sarah Hannah Hudson Hackman	Isaac Perriton Sarah Hannah Hudson Hackman 💍 1875/2312	Bachelor Spinster	Quarryman Dressmaker	40 23	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 years	In Saint Andrews Church Dunedin	75/2495	22 November 1875	Revd John Gow
423	22 November 1875	Nathaniel Jacobs Kate Moss	Nathaniel Jacobs Kate Moss 💍 1875/2623	Bachelor Spinster	Store Keeper	32 22	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 7 years	In Jewish Synagogue Dunedin	75/2584	22 November 1875	Revd B Lichtenstein

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).