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 925

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 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
386	9 October 1899	Joseph Burgess Elizabeth Macgowan	Joseph Burgess Elizabeth Macgowan 💍 1899/5036	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	23 years 21 years	Roslyn Woodhaugh	1 year 18 years	In the Office of Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	99/4932		9 October 1899	W. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
387	10 October 1899	John Leross Margaret Evelyn Rutter	John Cross Margaret Evelyn Rutter 💍 1899/5044	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	99/4933		10 October 1899	W. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
388	10 October 1899	John Smith Edith Mary Robson	John Smith Edith Mary Robson 💍 1899/4127	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	21 years 18 years	Dunedin Dunedin	18 years 8 years	In the house of Mrs. Mary Ann Robson, Filleul Street	99/5017	Mary Ann Robson, mother of minor	10 October 1899	Revd. Frank Hales, Church of Christ
389	10 October 1899	Andrew Campbell Helen Thomson	Andrew Campbell Helen Johnson 💍 1899/4126	Bachelor Spinster	Assayer	34 years 33 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 30 years	In the house of Maxwell William Newbury, Woodhaugh	99/5016		10 October 1899	Revd. J. M. Fraser, Presbyterian Minister
390	10 October 1899	Henry Joseph Hallinan Catherine Cecilia White	Henry Joseph Hallinan Catherine Cecilia White 💍 1899/4166	Bachelor Spinster	Farrier	29 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	9 months 2 years	In St. Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin	99/4985		10 October 1899	Revd. P. Murphy, Roman Catholic Priest
391	10 October 1899	John Mills Jane Fletcher	John Mills Jane Fletcher 💍 1899/5059	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 years 31 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church, Dunedin	99/4955		10 October 1899	Revd. H. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
392	10 October 1899	Bartholomew Rayne Margaret Murphy	Bartholomew Rayne Margaret Murphy 💍 1899/4172 David Samuel Mumford Margaret Murphy 💍 1900/2285	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	31 years 25 years	Dunedin Roslyn	3 days 4 years	In St. Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin	99/4986		10 October 1899	Revd. P. Murphy, Roman Catholic Priest

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).