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 1504

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1880 Registrar W. J. Hall Regr

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
367	16 December 1890	John Stubley Ellen Victoria Edwards	John Stubley Ellen Victoria Edwards 💍 1890/1753	Bachelor Spinster	Currier	24 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	24 years 19 years	In the house of Duncan Cameron, Cumberland Street, Dunedin	90/3639	Richard Edwards, father of minor	16 December 1890	Revd Dr Stuart, Presbyterian Minister
368	16 December 1890	Ernest Turner Louisa Blockley Jaquet	Ernest Turner Louisa Blockley Jaquet 💍 1890/3356	Bachelor Spinster	Chemist	28 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 6 weeks	In St Pauls Church, Dunedin	90/3613		16 December 1890	Ven Archdeacon Edwards, Church of England Minister
369	18 December 1890	William Pyott Stewart Mary Thompson Connelly	William Pyott Stewart Mary Thompson Connelly 💍 1890/3317	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	29 years 24 years	Dunedin Roslyn	4 years 6 years	In the house of Henry Connelly, Hawthorndale	90/3571		18 December 1890	Revd R R M Sutherland, Presbyterian Minister
370	19 December 1890	Charles Young Mary Agnes Robertson	Charles Young Mary Agnes Robertson 💍 1890/3366	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	28 years 29 years	Dunedin Dunedin	14 years 29 years	In the Presbyterian Church, Great King Street, Dunedin	90/3623		19 December 1890	Revd J G Smith, Presbyterian Minister
371	19 December 1890	Edward Vernon Scott Jeanie Blackwood	Edward Vernon Scott Jeanie Blackwood 💍 1890/3318	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler	29 years 25 years	Brockville Brockville	5 months 4 years	In the house of Adam Blackwood, Brockville	90/3572		19 December 1890	Revd R R M Sutherland, Presbyterian Ministry
372	20 December 1890	Andrew Fairbairn Junr Ada Pilkington	Andrew Fairburn Jun Ada Pilkington 💍 1890/3345	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	28 years 25 years	Maori Hill Maori Hill	20 years 16 years	In All Saints Church, Dunedin	90/3576		20 December 1890	Revd A R Fitchett, Church of England Minister
373	20 December 1890	John Scanlan Mary Scott	John Scanlon Mary Scott 💍 1890/1757	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	24 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 22 years	In Knox Church, Dunedin	90/3643		20 December 1890	Revd Dr Stuart, 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 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).