Intentions to Marry, 1899 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840416, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole 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 427

District of East Taieri Quarter ending 30 September 1899 Registrar Alfred Dickson

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
16	14 July 1899	Antoni Telenski Martha Smolenski	Antoni Velenski Martha Smolenski 💍 1899/3729	Bachelor Spinster	Journeyman Butcher	27 18	Mosgiel Allanton	18 months 14 years	Roman Catholic Church Allanton	99/3741	John Smolenski, Father	14 July 1899	Rev. John Ryan
17	14 July 1899	John Smolenski Annie Black	John Smolenski Annie Black 💍 1899/3730	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 18	Allanton Allanton	16 years 18 years	Roman Catholic Church Allanton	99/3742	John Black, Father	14 July 1899	Rev John Ryan
18	22 July 1899	James Johnston Jane Carlyle McLeod	James Johnston Jane Carlyle McLeod 💍 1899/4479	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	27 23	Mosgiel Mosgiel	5 years 23 years	at the house of Mrs Williams McLeod, Mosgiel	99/3993		22 July 1899	Rev J. M. McKerrow
19	31 July 1899	Archibald McCorkindale Lora Nicol	Archibald McCorkindale Dorothy Nichol 💍 1899/3731	Widower Widow	Blacksmith	42 36	Mosgiel Mosgiel	3 days 20 years	at the house of Rev Thomas Paulin, North Taieri	99/3743		31 July 1899	Rev Thomas Paulin
20	12 August 1899	Peter Ralston Elizabeth Milne	Peter Ralston Elizabeth Milne 💍 1899/3732	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 22	Allanton East Taieri	28 years 14 years	at the house of Mrs Milne, East Taieri	99/3744		12 August 1899	Rev Thomas Paulin
21	16 September 1899	James Millar Mary Wroblefski	James Millar Mary Wroblefski 💍 1899/4137	Bachelor Spinster	Coal miner	28 20	Saddle Hill Allanton	20 years 20 years	Roman Catholic Church Allanton	99/5047	John Wroblefski, Father	16 September 1899	Rev Edward Patrick O'Donnell
22	25 September 1899	John Lowrie Jessie Fraser	John Currie Jessie Fraser 💍 1899/5241	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	33 33	North Taieri North Taieri	1 year 2 years	at the house of Mr Allan Boyd, North Taieri	99/5381		25 September 1899	Rev Thomas Paulin
23	28 September 1899	James Alexander Stewart McCutcheon Martha Pedofski	James Alexander Stewart McCutcheon Martha Pedofsky 💍 1899/4138	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman	28 19	Allanton Allanton	9 years 19 years	Roman Catholic Church Allanton	99/5048	Joseph Pedofski, Father	28 September 1899	Rev Edward Patrick O'Donnell

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).