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 870

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
174	29 May 1897	John Denniston Smith Alice Louisa Muller	John Denniston Smith Alice Louisa Muller 💍 1897/1401	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	21 years 21 years	Dunedin Ravensbourne	18 years 21 years	In the house of Revd William Laycock, Dunedin	97/2454		29 May 1897	Revd W. Laycock, Methodist Minister
175	31 May 1897	Alexander Boyne Caroline Stait	Alexander Boyne Caroline Stait 💍 1897/64	Widower Spinster	Merchant	60 years 29 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 days 3 weeks	In the house of Revd William Hewitson	97/2389		31 May 1897	Revd W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
176	31 May 1897	William Morant Bayly Isabella Jane Gerhardt	William Morant Bayly Isabella Jane Gerhardt 💍 1897/1405	Bachelor Widow	Bank Agent	30 years 30 years	St. Leonards St. Leonards	3 days 3 years	In the house of Angus Mitchell	97/2461		31 May 1897	Revd D. Sutton, Presbyterian Minister
177	31 May 1897	Daniel Gibson Emma Edwards	Daniel Gibson Emma Edwards 💍 1897/68	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	22 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 14 years	In the house of Charles Edwards, Clarendon Street	97/2390	Charles Edwards, father of minor	31 May 1897	Revd W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
178	31 May 1897	Matthew Adam Ronald Catherine Helen Jones	Matthew Adam Ronald Catherine Helen Jones 💍 1897/3673	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	24 years 19 years	Roslyn Dunedin	8 years 1 year	In the house of John Robert Jones, Manse Street	97/2407	John Robert Jones, father of minor	31 May 1897	Revd J. R. Buttle, Wesleyan Minister
179	1 June 1897	George Jeffrey Thompson Wilhelmina Durward	George Jeffrey Thompson Wilhelmina Durwood 💍 1897/69	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	31 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church	97/2391	James Durward, father of minor	1 June 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).