Intentions to Marry, 1897 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840411, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 25 2025

1897 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 869

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 1897

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
168	24 May 1897	Robert Charles Renton Jessie Paterson	Robert Charles Renton Jessie Paterson 💍 1897/1365	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	25 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 weeks	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	97/2363	24 May 1897	M. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
169	26 May 1897	Robert Shaw Jessie Campbell	Robert Shaw Jessie Campbell 💍 1897/1388 Stephen Edward Sinclair Jessie Campbell 💍 1897/2523 Albert Swanwick Maria Campbell 💍 1897/1325	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	5 days 25 years	In the house of James Campbell, Duke Street	97/2386	26 May 1897	Revd W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
170	26 May 1897	Robert Cassels Glendining Margaret Ainslie Hay	Robert Cassels Glendinning Margaret Ainslie Hay 💍 1897/1389	Bachelor Spinster	Manufacturer	28 years 23 years	North East Valley Roslyn	20 years 12 years	In the house of Revd William Hewitson, Dunedin	97/2387	26 May 1897	Revd W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
171	26 May 1897	Robert Corbitt Marion Christie Bain	Robert Cubitt Marion Christie Bain 💍 1897/1438	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 years 22 years	M'Hare Flat Halfway Bush	4 months 22 years	In the house of John Bain, Halfway Bush	97/2405	26 May 1897	Revd R. R. M. Sutherland, Presbyterian Minister
172	27 May 1897	Alfred Edgar Loff Margaret Joyce	Alfred Edgar Lobb Margaret Joyce 💍 1897/411	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	26 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	St. Joseph's Cathedral	97/2407	27 May 1897	Revd John Ryan, Roman Catholic Priest
173	29 May 1897	Robert Smart Margaret Ramsay	Robert Smart Margaret Ramsay 💍 1897/1390	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	29 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 3 months	In the house of John Ferguson, Moray Place	97/2388	29 May 1897	Revd W. Hewitson, 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 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).