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 399

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 1899 Registrar W J 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
99	24 March 1899	Harry Rowland Sewell Ada Armitage	Harry Rowland Sewell Ada Armitage 💍 1899/1225	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	27 years 26 years	Roslyn Roslyn	24 years 6 years	In the house of William Kaye, Roslyn	99/1116		24 March 1899	Revd W C Oliver, Wesleyan Minister
100	24 March 1899	Robert Wilson Wilhelmina Torrance	Robert Wilson Wilhelmina Torrance 💍 1899/960	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	28 years 29 years	Dunedin Dunedin	7 years 23 years	In the house of John Ainslie, Torrance, Royal Terrace, Dunedin	99/941		24 March 1899	Revd W Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
101	24 March 1899	James Irvine Junr Elizabeth Ann Murray	James Irvine Muir Elizabeth Ann Murray 💍 1899/971	Bachelor Spinster	Meat Preserver	24 years 18 years	Dunedin Dunedin	24 years 6 years	In the house of James Irvine Junr, Filleul Street, Dunedin	99/929	James Murray, father of minor	24 March 1899	Revd James Gibb, Presbyterian Minister
102	24 March 1899	Robert Neill Margaret Millar	Robert Neill Margaret Millar 💍 1899/1046	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 years 27 years	North East Valley North East Valley	4 years 3 days	In the house of Robert Neill, North East Valley	99/983		24 March 1899	Revd Edward C Tennent, Presbyterian Minister, Port Chalmers
103	25 March 1899	James Myall Mary Hamilton	James Myall Mary Hamilton 💍 1899/1014 James Harly Margaret Hamilton 💍 1899/1332	Bachelor Spinster	Fishmonger	40 years 32 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 days 3 days	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	99/920		25 March 1899	W J Hall, Registrar of Marriages
104	25 March 1899	Frederick William McIntosh Margaret Brass	Frederic William McIntosh Margaret Brass 💍 1899/2732	Bachelor Spinster	Letter Carrier	25 years 28 years	Caversham Caversham	16 years 2 years	In the Presbyterian Church, South Dunedin	99/2806		25 March 1899	Revd Isaac Jolly, Presbyterian Minister
105	25 March 1899	James Clark Jessie Jane McKellar Hill	James Clark Jessie Jane McKellor Hill 💍 1899/2482	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	35 years 23 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	16 years 14 years	In the house of John Hill, South Dunedin	99/2450		25 March 1899	Revd Isaac Jolly, 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 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).