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 374

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 September 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
248	11 August 1898	Stewart Allison Scott Junr. Isabella Brown	Stewart Allison Scott Jun Isabella Brown Barton Telfer 💍 1898/3103	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	17 21	South Dunedin Maori Hill	3 days 14 years	In the house of William Telfer, Maori Hill	98/3400	Stewart Allison Scott, father of minor	11 August 1898	Revd J. G. Brooke, Wesleyan Minister
249	11 August 1898	John Thomas Barnes Lucy Dorence Duncan	John Thomas Barnes Lucy Florence Duncan 💍 1898/3326	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 22	Green Island Green Island	23 years 22 years	In the Presbyterian Manse	98/3686		11 August 1898	Revd Dr. Watt, Presbyterian Minister
250	13 August 1898	Albert Webber Christina Spears White	Albert Webber Christina Spears White 💍 1898/3079	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	28 26	Ravensbourne Ravensbourne	28 years 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	98/3348		13 August 1898	James Taylor, Deputy Registrar of Marriages
251	15 August 1898	Hugh McEldowney Jane McDougall	Hugh McEldowney Jean McDougall 💍 1898/4032	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper Servant	45 30	Dunedin Dunedin	20 months 18 months	In St. Patrick's Church, South Dunedin	98/3381		15 August 1898	Revd J. Coffey, Roman Catholic Priest
252	15 August 1898	John Gebbie Hannah Brew	John Gebbie Hannah Brew 💍 1898/2521	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper Domestic	42 27	Dunedin Dunedin	25 years 10 years	In St. Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin	98/3735		15 August 1898	Revd P. Murphy, Roman Catholic Priest
253	16 August 1898	John Roy Louisa Harriet Alberta Briggs	John Roy Louisa Harriet Alberta Briggs 💍 1898/3089	Bachelor Spinster	Dairy Farmer	26 21	Maori Hill Caversham	26 years 16 years	In St. Peter's Church, Caversham	98/3408		16 August 1898	Revd B. M. King, Church of England Minister
254	17 August 1898	Fraser Shirriffs Kate Gillespie Harniss	Fraser Shirriffs Kate Gillespie Harneiss 💍 1898/3546	Bachelor Spinster	Fitter	21 17	Kaikorai Kaikorai	1 year 16 years	In the house of Barton Harniss, Kaikorai	98/4763	Barton Harniss, father of minor	17 August 1898	Revd R. R. 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 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).