Intentions to Marry, 1879

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840391, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, April 30 2025

Page 916

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1879

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
357	6 October 1879	Robert Norie Cowan Amy Purchise Swaffield	Robert Norie Cowan Amy Purchise Swaffield 💍 1879/3278	Widower Spinster	Plumber	39 years 33 years	Maori Hill North East Valley	3 years 3 months	In the house of Mrs Mary Ann Swaffield	79/2884	6 October 1879	Revd Lindsay Mackie
358	6 October 1879	Henry Wilson Jane Young	Henry Wilson Jane Young 💍 1879/3285	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	18 years 5 years	In the house of the Revd Dr Stuart	79/2912	6 October 1879	Revd Dr Stuart
359	7 October 1879	Sylvester Whitty Margaret Smallman	Sylvester Whitty Margaret Smallman 💍 1879/2528	Widower Spinster	Storeman Housemaid	32 years 30 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 12 years	In St Josephs Chapel	79/2856	7 October 1879	Revd P. O'Leary
360	7 October 1879	Andrew Steven Bell Mary Dalziel	Andrew Steven Bell Mary Dalsiel 💍 1879/2629	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	46 years 37 years	Invercargill Dunedin	12 years 14 days	In the house of Revd J. G. Paterson	79/3050	7 October 1879	Revd J. G. Paterson
361	8 October 1879	John Blair Dempster Margaret Hamilton	John Blair Dempster Margaret Hamilton 💍 1879/2531 John Paterson Margaret Hamilton 💍 1879/2075	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 years 22 years	Green Island Green Island	24 years 14 years	In the house of James Hamilton	79/2896	8 October 1879	Revd Mr Watt
362	9 October 1879	William Halliday Agnes Paxton Calvert	William Halliday Agnes Panton Calvert 💍 1879/3311	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 years 22 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of Revd Dr Copland	79/2940	9 October 1879	Revd Dr Copland

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).