Intentions to Marry, 1882

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840394, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, April 16 2025

Page 959

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 September 1882

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
270	22 August 1882	Francis Stent Janet Fraser	Francis Stent Janet Fraser 💍 1882/3451	Bachelor Spinster	Jeweller	21 20	Dunedin Dunedin	6 years 7 years	In the house of Revd Lindsay Mackie	82/537	John Fraser father of minor	22 August 1882	Revd L Mackie Presbyterian Minister
271	22 August 1882	John braig Holmes Mary Ballantine Kerr	John Craig Holmes Mary Ballantine Kerr 💍 1882/2407	Bachelor Spinster	clerk	28 20	Dunedin Dunedin	2 1/2 years 18 years	In St. Pauls Church	82/534	Samuel Thompson Kerr, father of minor	22 August 1882	Revd E. G. Edwards Church of England Minister
272	25 August 1882	Alexander Davidson Jane Macpherson	Alexander Davidson Jane Macpherson 💍 1882/2696	Bachelor Spinster	Farm manager	28 27	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 years	In the house of Mrs Annie Macpherson Albany Street	82/1563		25 August 1882	Revd A. b. Gillies Presbyterian Minister
273	25 August 1882	John Edgar Margaret Jane Black	John Edgar Margaret Jane Black 💍 1882/2390	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Housemaid	26 24	Green Island Green Island	2 years 2 years	In the house of Robert Herbison	82/23524		25 August 1882	Revd In Watt Presbyterian Minister
274	26 August 1882	Nicholas O'Connor Mary Ann O'Connor	Nicholas O'Connor Mary Ann O'Connor 💍 1882/3499 Thomas Edward Muir Mary Ann O'Connor 💍 1882/3504	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	31 20	South Dunedin South Dunedin	7 years 3 years	In St. Patrick's Church	82/3531	John O'Connor father of minor	26 August 1882	Revd W. B. Burton Roman Catholic Priest
275	28 August 1882	John Churchwood Bambery Isabella Thomson Beath	John Churelwood Bambery Isabella Thomson Beath 💍 1882/2404	Bachelor Spinster	Engine Driver	32 27	North East Valley Linden	4 months 6 years	In the house of Andrew Beath Linden	82/23144		28 August 1882	Revd R R M Sutherland Presbyterian Minister

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).