Intentions to Marry, 1897 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840412, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 25 2025

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

Page 378

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 September 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
280	20 September 1897	Frank Dubrell Morrah Frances Elsie Royse	Frank Bubrelle Morrah Frances Elsie Royse 💍 1897/2248	Bachelor Spinster	Station Manager	31 years 25 years	Morton Mains, Invercargill Dunedin	2 years 23 years	In All Saints Church	97/3476		20 September 1897	Very Revd. A. R. Fitchett, Church of England Minister
281	20 September 1897	John Millar Laing Elizabeth Charlotte Paterson		Bachelor Spinster	Ironmonger	26 years 23 years	Brockville Maori Hill	26 years 18 years	In the house of Adam Paterson, Dowling Street, Dunedin	97/3452		20 September 1897	Revd. W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
282	20 September 1897	Frederic K. Barnett May Goldsmith	Frederick Barnett Clarissa May Goldsmith 💍 1897/2229	Bachelor Spinster	Fireman	27 years 21 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	18 years 3 months	In the house of William Barnett, South Dunedin	97/3453		20 September 1897	Revd. T. G. Brooke, Wesleyan Minister
283	21 September 1897	William Murphy Ann Josephine Hinchey	William Murphy Ann Josephine Hinchey 💍 1897/2350	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	39 years 37 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 2 years	In St. Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin	97/3619		21 September 1897	Revd. P. Murphy, Roman Catholic Priest
284	22 September 1897	William Morris Mary Ann Anderson	William Morris Lyons Colvin Mary Ann Anderson 💍 1897/2213 William Yardley Mary Dora Anderson 💍 1897/2250	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	24 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	24 years 20 years	In the house of Peter Anderson, George Street, Dunedin	97/3437	Peter Anderson, father of minor	22 September 1897	Revd. W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
285	22 September 1897	Charles Williams Elizabeth Hood	Charles Williams Elizabeth Wood 💍 1897/3557 Thomas Williams Elizabeth Lawrie 💍 1897/1773 Charles Williams Charlotte Edith Coull 💍 1898/682	Bachelor Spinster	Ropemaker	22 years 18 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	8 years 18 years	In the house of John Hood, South Dunedin	97/3495	John Hood, father of minor	22 September 1897	Revd. Isaac Jolly, Presbyterian Minister
286	25 September 1897	Fred Davies Havard Mary Lewitt	Joseph Taylor Harris Mary Lewitt 💍 1897/4537	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 years 29 years	Dunedin Halfway Bush	1 week 4 years	In the house of Mary Elizabeth Lewitt	97/3451		25 September 1897	Revd. R. R. M. Sutherland, 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).