Intentions to Marry, 1886

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840398, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 14 2025

Page 1463

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1886

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
327	11 December 1886	Thomas Henry Gill Mary Milne	Thomas Henry Gill Mary Milne 💍 1886/3227	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster	27 years 27 years	Caversham Caversham	2 years 22 years	In the house of William Milne	86/3255		11 December 1886	Revd J Frazer Hurst, Presbyterian Minister
328	13 December 1886	George Turner Harriet Elizabeth Aburn	George Turner Harriet Elizabeth Aburn 💍 1886/1323	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	23 years 21 years	Green Island Green Island	4 years 8 years	In the house of Samuel Aburn	86/3235		13 December 1886	Revd W. Watt, Presbyterian Minister
329	14 December 1886	John Mitchell Craigie Ada Mellor	John Mitchele Craigie Ada Mellor 💍 1886/1337	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	24 years 22 years	Mornington Kaikorai Valley	12 years 5 years	In the house of Job Mellor	86/3248		14 December 1886	Revd S. J. Garlick, Wesleyan Minister
330	15 December 1886	Edward Green Mary Ann Steele	Edward Green Mary Ann Steele 💍 1886/3230	Bachelor Widow	Butcher	25 years 25 years	Dunedin North East Valley	2 years 3 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	86/3264		15 December 1886	A R Ure, Registrar of Marriages
331	16 December 1886	Joseph Henry Jones Diana Dymmock	Joseph Henry Jones Diana Dymmock 💍 1886/3240	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler Machinist	26 years 20 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	1 year 11 years	In the house of Stephen Southam	86/3275	Sarah Southam, mother of minor	16 December 1886	Revd W. S. Parsonson, Wesleyan Minister
332	18 December 1886	Alfred George Baker Mary Savage	Alfred George Baker Mary Savage 💍 1886/3231	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	23 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	18 months 14 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	86/3287		18 December 1886	A R Ure, Registrar of Marriages

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 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).