Intentions to Marry, 1898 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840414, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 27 2025

1898 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 863

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1898

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
324	22 October 1898	James Sizemore Jane Duncan	James Sizemore Jane Duncan 💍 1898/5069	Widower Spinster	Farmer	37 years 24 years	Abbotsford Burnside	1 week 1 week	In the house of Revd Dr Watt Green Island	98/5035	22 October 1898	Revd Dr Watt, Presbyterian Minister
325	24 October 1898	John O'Reilly Eliza Shutt	John OReilly Eliza Shutt 💍 1898/3552	Bachelor Spinster	Coal Dealer	31 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	31 years 12 years	In St Patrick's Church South Dunedin	98/4746	24 October 1898	Revd James Coffey, Roman Catholic Priest
326	25 October 1898	Edward Francis Black Mary Pauline Kennaway Browne	Edward Francis Black Mary Pauline Forfar-Kennaway Browne 💍 1898/3395	Bachelor Divorced	Banker	34 years 32 years	Dunedin Christchurch	1 year 8 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages Christchurch	98/4452	25 October 1898	Registrar of Marriages, Christchurch
327	25 October 1898	Robert Samuel Cox Isabella Dickison	Robert Samuel Cox Isabella Dickison 💍 1898/4965	Bachelor Spinster	Salesman	27 years 25 years	Andersons Bay Andersons Bay	27 years 8 years	In the Presbyterian Church Andersons Bay	98/4741	25 October 1898	Revd A. Cameron, Presbyterian Minister
328	27 October 1898	Henry James Munday Emily Jane Laing	Henry James Munday Emily Jane Laing 💍 1898/2567	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	41 years 35 years	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 30 years	In the house of Revd William Saunders Dunedin	98/4707	27 October 1898	Revd W. Saunders, Congregational Minister
329	27 October 1898	William Anderson Jessie Wilson Moore	William Anderson Isabella Martin Shore 💍 1898/3982 William Anderson Catherine Campbell McPhedran 💍 1898/5099	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	29 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 22 years	In the house of Revd William Hewitson Dunedin		27 October 1898	Revd H. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
330	29 October 1898	James Gilbert Burt Marion Wilson	James Gilbert Burt Marion Wilson 💍 1898/4740	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 13 years	In St Andrews Church Dunedin	98/4689	29 October 1898	Revd Dr Waddell, 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).