Intentions to Marry, 1893

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840405, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole and Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 6 2025.

A few pages are missing due to focus issues.

Page 1569

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1893

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
316	5 December 1893	George William Boraman Jessie Mary Elizabeth Bennett	George William Boraman Jessie Mary Elizabeth Penman 💍 1893/3442	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	28 years 19 years	Dunedin Roslyn	8 years 13 years	In the house of John Vennman, Roslyn	93/3696	John Vennman, father of Minor	5 December 1893	Revd. A. D. Davidson, Presbyterian Minister
317	6 December 1893	Herbert Alexander Ross Alicia McNeary	Herbert Alexander Ross Alicia McNeary 💍 1893/4098	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber	31 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	26 years 4 years	In Knox Church, Dunedin	93/3697		6 December 1893	Revd. A. D. Davidson, Presbyterian Minister
318	6 December 1893	Reginald Thomas Catty Ann Jane Edmonds	Reginald Thomas Oats Ann Jane Edmonds 💍 1893/3577	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	26 years 18 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	93/3735	No person in the colony to give consent (Minor)	20 December 1893	H. J. Hall, Registrar (married)
319	7 December 1893	William Edward Taylor Mary Louisa Macdonald	William Edward Taylor Mary Louisa Macdonald 💍 1893/3671	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher of Music	26 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 15 years	In St. Pauls Church, Dunedin	93/3673		7 December 1893	Ven. Archdeacon Edwards, Church of England Minister
320	8 December 1893	James Hutchison Anna Pearson Copland	James Hutchison Anna Pincam Copland 💍 1893/3578	Bachelor Spinster	Reporter	26 years 24 years	Dunedin Gore	9 years 5 years	In the Presbyterian Church, Gore	93/3754		8 December 1893	Revd. John L. Asher, Presbyterian Minister
321	9 December 1893	Archibald Cowie Blackadder Susan Briggs Laing	Archibald Currie Blackadder Susan Briggs Laing 💍 1893/4119	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	26 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 weeks 21 years	In the house of Robert Blackadder, London Street	93/3720		9 December 1893	Revd. J. Gibb, Presbyterian Minister
322	11 December 1893	George William Gough Mary Duncan	George William Gough Mary Duncan 💍 1893/3677	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Engineer	30 years 26 years	Dunedin Roslyn	7 years 6 years	In the house of Mrs. Catherine Duncan, Roslyn	93/3657		11 December 1893	Revd. A. North, Baptist 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).