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 795

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
463	29 December 1875	James Paterson Janet Brown	James Patersen Janet Brown 💍 1875/2783 David Henderson Jane Brown 💍 1876/163 James Malen Laurie Jane Brown 💍 1875/2922 James Fulton Agnes Brown 💍 1875/765	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Dressmaker	24 years 19 years	Rattray King Street Dunedin	2 years 13 years	In the house of Robert Brown King Street Dunedin	75/2542	Robert Brown father	29 December 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
464	29 December 1875	John Welkie Morris Eliza Fulton	John Wilkie Morris Eliza Fulton 💍 1876/1340	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Dressmaker	27 years 28 years	Dunedin Kensington	18 months 4 days	In the house of William Edmond Kensington Valley Kensington	75/259		29 December 1875	Revd Joseph W Davis
465	29 December 1875	Burrows Irwin Emma Stokes	Burrows Irwin Emma Stokes 💍 1876/796	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Dressmaker	25 years 18 years	Dunedin St Kilda	4 days 6 months	In St Pauls Church Dunedin	75/600	John Stokes father	29 December 1875	The Venble Arch Deacon Edwards
466	29 December 1875	John Laverty Mary Bell	John Laverty Mary Bell 💍 1875/2705	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	32 years 37 years	Dunedin Andersons Bay	4 days 2 years	In the house of Neil Reid Portobello	75/2932		29 December 1875	Revd Dr Copeland
467	29 December 1875	Peter Skinner Margaret Heron	Peter Skinner Margaret Heron 💍 1875/2784	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler Servant	24 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 18 months	In the house of Robert McKinlay Moray Place Dunedin	75/2543		29 December 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
468	29 December 1875	William Jonathan Frost Elizabeth Townsend Robbins	William Jonathan Frost Elizabeth Townsend Robbins 💍 1875/3210	Bachelor Spinster	Express Proprietor Servant	33 years 25 years	Warrington Dunedin	12 months 12 months	In the house of David Roy Carpenter Hill	75/3024		29 December 1875	Revd Joseph W Davis
469	29 December 1875	Frederick Foster Mary Ann Knowles	Frederick Foster Mary Ann Knowles 💍 1875/2785	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Machinist	24 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	20 months 10 years	In the house of John Yates Frederick Street Dunedin	75/2574		29 December 1875	Revd Dr Stuart
470	29 December 1875	John O Brien Bridget Tuohy	John OBrien Bridget Tuohy 💍 1875/2701	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	26 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	6 days 4 years	In St Josephs Church Dunedin	75/2929		29 December 1875	Revd Wm 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).