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 939

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
257	24 June 1899	James Bland Marion Gillespie	James Bland Marion Gillespie 💍 1899/2526	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	27 years 29 years	North East Valley Dunedin	21 years 29 years	In the house of Revd James Guy	99/2487		24 June 1899	Revd James Guy, Methodist Minister
258	26 June 1899	Thomas Hughan Barbara McKinnon	Thomas Hughan Barbara McKinnon 💍 1899/2388	Widower Widow	Crown Land Ranger	59 years 40 years	Dunedin Mornington	7 years 4 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages	99/2404		26 June 1899	W. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
259	26 June 1899	James Davies Emma Georgina Morris	James Davies Junr Emma Georgina Morris 💍 1899/2390	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	27 years 19 years	Dunedin Dunedin	14 years 7 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages	99/2405	George Morris, father of minor	26 June 1899	W. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
260	26 June 1899	Albert Thomas White Bessie Margaret Bremner	Albert Thomas White Bessie Margaret Bremner 💍 1899/2492	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	21 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 22 years	In the Trinity Wesleyan Church	99/2459		26 June 1899	Revd William Sinclair, Wesleyan Minister
261	27 June 1899	William Gwyn Lizzie Bates	William Gwyn Lizzie Bates 💍 1899/2504	Bachelor Spinster	Saw Miller	25 years 20 years	Dunedin South Dunedin	3 days 1 month	In the Baptist Church	99/2473	Thomas Bates, father of minor	27 June 1899	Revd John Muirhead, Baptist Minister
262	27 June 1899	David Adie Williamina Matheson Hutcheson	David Adie Williamina Matheson Hutcheson 💍 1899/3548	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	29 years 23 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	1 week 19 years	In the house of Thomas Hutcheson	99/2711		27 June 1899	Revd Albert T. G. Chandler, Baptist Minister
263	27 June 1899	Henry Hurring Emily Field	Henry Harring Emily Field 💍 1899/2479	Bachelor Spinster	Flax Miller	25 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of Revd P. W. Fairclough, Dunedin	99/2447	James Frederick Compton Field, father of minor	27 June 1899	Revd P. W. Fairclough, Wesleyan 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).