Intentions to Marry, 1891

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840403, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole and Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 28 2025

A few pages are missing due to focus issues.

The Archives NZ CSV index has recorded pages 765, 767 and 769 incorrectly as 795, 797 and 796.

Page 078

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1891

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
387	16 December 1891	Duncan Nichol Know Agnes Brown Cunningham	Duncan Nichol Knox Agnes Brown Cunningham 💍 1891/2624	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinetmaker	30 years 28 years	Leaversham South Dunedin	30 years 10 years	In the house of Peter Allan	91/3554	16 December 1891	Revd W. Campbell, Presbyterian Minister
388	16 December 1891	William Mitchell Juanita Sawyer	William Mitchell Juanita Sawer 💍 1891/2906 William Mitchell Elizabeth Chalker 💍 1891/1221 William Mitchell Lavinia Walker Craig 💍 1891/3719	Widower Widow	Reporter	56 years 33 years	Dunedin Dunedin	7 weeks 3 weeks	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages	91/3594	16 December 1891	W. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
389	17 December 1891	Frederick Golding Elizabeth Theresa Athey	Frederick Golding Elizabeth Theresa Athey 💍 1891/2871	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	27 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	11 years 3 years	St Josephs Cathedral	91/3803	17 December 1891	Revd P. O'Neill, Roman Catholic Priest
390	18 December 1891	William Henry Taylor Louisa Hicks	William Henry Taylor Louisa Wicks 💍 1892/1248	Bachelor Spinster	Telegraphist	25 years 30 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 25 years	In the house of Mrs Susannah Hicks, Castle Street Dunedin	91/744	18 December 1891	Revd J. S. Smith, Presbyterian Minister
391	19 December 1891	William Ronald Elizabeth Jane Eason	William Ronald Elizabeth Jane Eason 💍 1891/2893	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	22 years 23 years	Kaikorai Valley Kaikorai Valley	3 years 4 years	In the house of Revd Dr Stuart	91/3582	19 December 1891	Revd Dr Stuart, Presbyterian Minister
392	19 December 1891	Thomas James Cavanagh Pamela Smith	Thomas James Cavanagh Pamela Smith 💍 1891/2648	Widower Widow	Boilermaker	56 years 45 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	20 years 6 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages	91/3595	19 December 1891	W. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
393	21 December 1891	Godwin Scudamore Elizabeth Campbell Matheson	Godwin Scudamore Elizabeth Campbell Matheson 💍 1891/2898	Bachelor Spinster	Brewer	27 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 23 years	In the house of Lewis Pullar, Union Street Dunedin	91/3587	21 December 1891	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 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).