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 932

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1899 Registrar J P 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
436	21 November 1899	Arthur Bryan Lilian Roberts		Bachelor Spinster	Barrister	35 years 26 years	Anderson's Bay Dunedin	3 days 21 years	In St Matthews Church	99/5009		21 November 1899	Revd H Curzon Legge, Church of England Minister
437	21 November 1899	David Neil Janet Kane	David Neil Janet Kane 💍 1899/5235	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 years 27 years	Green Island Green Island	3 days 25 years	In the house of Daniel Kane, Green Island	99/5374		21 November 1899	Revd Dr Watt, Presbyterian Minister
438	21 November 1899	Francis David Mitchell Amelia Alice Butcher	Francis Davis Mitchell Amelia Alice Butcher 💍 1899/5072	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Employe	25 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 3 months	In the Trinity Church	99/4969		21 November 1899	Revd Fr A Sinclair, Wesleyan Minister
439	22 November 1899	John Reynolds Alice Maud Mary Cross	John Reynolds Alice Maud Mary Cross 💍 1899/5487	Bachelor Spinster	Manufacturer	26 years 20 years	Maori Hill Maori Hill	4 months 11 years	In Salvation Army Barrack, North East Valley	99/5041	Alice Cross, Mother of minor	22 November 1899	Major Jonah Evans, Salvation Army
440	27 November 1899	John Hall Elizabeth Cooper	John Hall Elizabeth Cooper 💍 1899/5045	Widower Widow	Farmer	60 years 57 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 26 years	In the Office of Registrar of Marriages	99/4947		27 November 1899	J P Hall, Registrar of Marriages
441	27 November 1899	Louis Henry Hoare Kate Austin	Louis Henry Hoare Kate Austin 💍 1899/5079	Bachelor Spinster	Importer	36 years 24 years	Dunedin South Dunedin	3 weeks 1 week	In the house of Revd Isaac Jolly, South Dunedin	99/4976		27 November 1899	Revd Isaac Jolly, Presbyterian Minister
442	27 November 1899	Edwin Sunderland Jessie Menzies Readman	Edwin Sunderland Jessie Menzies Readman 💍 1899/4159	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	25 years 24 years	Roslyn Dunedin	18 years 24 years	In the First Church, Dunedin	99/4996		27 November 1899	Revd James Gibb, 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).