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 476

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 September 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
211	2 July 1891	John Frame Jeannie Walker	John Frame Jeannie Walker 💍 1891/1779 Joseph Wilson Haley Jeanie Walker 💍 1891/70	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of Revd Dr Stuart	91/2625		2 July 1891	Revd Dr Stuart Presbyterian Minister
212	3 July 1891	James Anderson Edith Mary Green	James Anderson Edith Mary Green 💍 1891/2055	Bachelor Spinster	Light House Keeper	30 years 23 years	Peninsula Peninsula	3 days 22 years	In the Wesleyan Church Broad Bay	91/2663		3 July 1891	Revd J. Jory Wesleyan Minister
213	3 July 1891	Arthur Reeves Janet Emelie	Arthur Reeves Janet Emslie 💍 1891/1781	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	21 years 19 years	St. Kilda St. Kilda	2 years 14 years	In Knox Church Dunedin	91/2627	Mary Emelie, mother of minor	3 July 1891	Revd Dr Stuart Presbyterian Minister
214	3 July 1891	John Anderson Georgina Hodgkinson	John Anderson Georgina Hodgkinson 💍 1891/2035	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	21 years 18 years	Dunedin Dunedin	21 years 4 years	In the house of Mrs Isabella Anderson Woodhaugh	91/2667	John Hodgkinson, father of minor	3 July 1891	Revd J. Rytey Presbyterian Minister
215	3 July 1891	James Bone Mary Park	James Bone Mary Park 💍 1891/1780	Bachelor Spinster	Fireman	26 years 32 years	Dunedin Dunedin	20 years 5 years	In the house of Revd Dr Stuart	91/2626		3 July 1891	Revd Dr Stuart Presbyterian Minister
216	4 July 1891	Samuel Nicholson Elizabeth Atkin	Samuel Nicholson Elizabeth Atkin 💍 1891/1755	Widower Spinster	Boilermaker	42 years 26 years	Mornington Dunedin	10 years 6 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	91/2651		4 July 1891	W. J. Hall Registrar of Marriage
217	4 July 1891	Richard Booth Mary Taggart	Richard Booth Mary Taggart 💍 1891/1766	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	21 years 19 years	Andersons Bay South Dunedin	21 years 1 year	In St. Patrick's Church	91/2605	James Taggart, father of minor	4 July 1891	Revd S. Hunt Roman Catholic Priest

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).