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 945

District of East Taieri Quarter ending 30 June 1899 Registrar Septimus Edward Brent

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
9	18 April 1899	Frederick Hanaway Agnes Sinclair	Frederick Harraway Agnes Sinclair 💍 1899/2707	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 22	Mosgiel Mosgiel	3 years 22 years	At the house of William Christie Sinclair, Mosgiel	99/2691	18 April 1899	Rev. J. M. McKerrow
10	25 April 1899	John Allan Jane Blair Todd	John Allan Jane Blair Todd 💍 1899/2709	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	37 25	East Taieri East Taieri	37 years 25 years	At the house of Robert Todd, Johnstown, East Taieri	99/2692	25 April 1899	Rev. James Will
11	25 April 1899	William Milne Margaret Barron	William Milne Margaret Barron 💍 1899/2789 William Strang Margaret Jessie Barron 💍 1899/3653	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 27	East Taieri Saddle Hill	13 years 10 years	At the house of James Barron, Saddle Hill	99/2726	25 April 1899	Rev. Thomas Paulin
12	22 May 1899	James Hay Campbell Mary Nicol	James Hay Campbell Mary Nicol 💍 1899/2710	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	30 24	Mosgiel Mosgiel	3 days	At the house of William Nicol, Forth Street, Mosgiel	99/2693	22 May 1899	Rev. James M. McKerrow
13	30 May 1899	Robert Roberton Janet Turnbull	Robert Robertson Janet Turnbull 💍 1899/2711	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 27	Mosgiel Mosgiel	7 months 20 years	At the house of John Turnbull, Factory Road, Mosgiel	99/2694	30 May 1899	Rev. J. M. McKerrow
14	9 June 1899	John Renton Stevenson Susan Armstrong Turnbull	John Renton Stevenson Susan Armstrong Turnbull 💍 1899/2831	Bachelor Spinster	Factory Worker	25 26	Mosgiel Mosgiel	25 years 6 years	At the house of Sydney Turnbull, Mosgiel	99/2814	9 June 1899	Rev. Thomas Paulin
15	27 June 1899	Aaron Saigan Elizabeth Watson	Aaron Faigan Elizabeth Watson 💍 1899/2706 Alfred Peters Elizabeth Watson 💍 1899/3570	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor	22 21	Abbotsford Abbotsford	7 days 21 years	At office of Registrar, Mosgiel	99/2690	27 June 1899	Registrar, Mosgiel

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).