Intentions to Marry, 1890

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840402, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 23 2025

Page 317

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 1890 Registrar Archibald Reid Ure

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
110	25 March 1890	Alexander Allan Henderson Charlotte Ruston	Alexander Allan Henderson Charlotte Ruston 💍 1890/742	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	25 years 24 years	Dunedin Dunedin	7 months 24 years	In the house of Revd Dr Stuart	90/726		25 March 1890	Revd Dr Stuart, Presbyterian Minister
111	25 March 1890	William Domigan Mayleavins Hastie	William Domigan May Cairns Hastie 💍 1890/582	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	23 years 31 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 5 years	In the house of Mrs Agnes Brown, Leith Street	90/659		25 March 1890	Revd A Horth, Baptist Minister
112	25 March 1890	George Driver Louisa Alice Burns	George Driver Louisa Alice Burns 💍 1890/747	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	22 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	22 years 18 years	In the house of Edward Wilkinson, Forth Street	90/727	Thomas Burns, father of Minor	25 March 1890
113	26 March 1890	John Hall Mary Ann Constantine	John Hall Mary Ann Constantine 💍 1890/1335	Widower Widow	Plumber	47 years 50 years	Caversham Caversham	18 months 6 months	In the house of John Hall	90/742		26 March 1890	Revd L E Watson, Church of England Minister
114	26 March 1890	Thomas Haddock Julia Skerritt	Thomas Haddock Julia Skerrett 💍 1890/748	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	32 years 33 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 12 years	In Knox Church	90/728		26 March 1890	Revd Dr Stuart, Presbyterian Minister
115	27 March 1890	Thomas George Lynn Agnes Ward	Thomas George Flynn Agnes Ward 💍 1890/739	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	23 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	18 years 1 year	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	90/744		27 March 1890	A R Ure, Registrar of Marriages
116	27 March 1890	James Sim Fanny Death	James Sim Fanny Death 💍 1890/740	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	48 years 32 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 1 week	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	90/745		27 March 1890	A R Ure, Registrar of Marriages

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).