Intentions to Marry, 1899 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840415, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington (now located in the National Library reading room), September 5 2025

1899 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 925

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 1899 Registrar William Joseph Hall

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
158	18 April 1899	Thomas Fraser Sarah Elizabeth Cox	Thomas Fraser Sarah Elizabeth Cox 💍 1899/2468	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 1 year	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages	99/12385	Joseph Cox, father of minor	18 April 1899	Mr. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
159	20 April 1899	William Brown Jessie Elizabeth Jenkins	William Brown Jessie Elizabeth Jenkins 💍 1899/2426	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	32 years 33 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 32 years	In the house of Revd. William Hewitson	99/2411		20 April 1899	Revd. W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
160	22 April 1899	George Beath Grace Wilson Mayhew	George Beath Grace Wilson Mayhew 💍 1899/2522	Bachelor Spinster	Musician	28 years 22 years	Roslyn Caversham	20 years 8 months	In the house of George Frederick Mayhew	99/2467		22 April 1899	Revd. C. Watt, Church of Christ
161	22 April 1899	William Mentlas Higgins Alice Kay	William Wentlas Higgins Alice Kay 💍 1899/2395	Bachelor Spinster	Jockey	23 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 weeks 6 months	In the house of Mrs. Hannah Kay, Great King Street	99/2410		22 April 1899	Revd. W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
162	22 April 1899	Andrew Kenyon Margaret Jane Ritchie	Andrew Kenyon Margaret Jane Ritchie 💍 1899/2783	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	23 years 21 years	Green Island Green Island	2 years 20 years	In the house of Mrs. Janet Ritchie	99/0725		22 April 1899	Revd. Dr. Watt, Presbyterian Minister
163	22 April 1899	Thomas Henderson Christina Tulloch	Thomas Henderson Christina Tullock 💍 1899/2477	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	28 years 32 years	Maori Hill Maori Hill	28 years 5 years	In the Trinity Church	99/2445		22 April 1899	Revd. P. H. Fairclough, Wesleyan Minister
164	25 April 1899	John Henderson Dickinson Sara Young	John Henderson Dickinson Sara Young 💍 1899/2747	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	25 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 years 27 years	In St. Paul's Cathedral	99/2698		25 April 1899	Revd. E. G. Edwards, Church of England 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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).