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 930

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1899 Registrar W. McCall

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
422	6 November 1899	Arthur Harrop Margaret Helen Anderson	Arthur Harrop Margaret Helen Anderson 💍 1899/4111	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	26 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	26 years 1 year	In the house of George Anderson Forth Street Dunedin	99/5022		6 November 1899	Revd A Saunders Congregational Minister
423	6 November 1899	James Joseph Ledgerwood Margaret McLean	James Joseph Ledgerwood Margaret McLean 💍 1899/5250	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	26 years 29 years	Dunedin North East Valley	20 years 20 years	In the house of John McLean North East Valley	99/5367		6 November 1899	Revd D Borrie Presbyterian Minister
424	6 November 1899	Harold Gustav Möller Annie Alice Bailes	Harold Gustav Muller Annie Alice Bailes 💍 1899/5071	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	28 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 5 months	In the house of John Philip Bailes York Place Dunedin	99/4968		6 November 1899	Revd W. A. Sinclair Wesleyan Minister
425	7 November 1899	Frederick Berry Mary McKerrow	Frederick Perry Mary McKerrow 💍 1899/5078	Bachelor Widow	Boilermaker	26 years 47 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	2 years 18 years	In the house of Mrs Mary McKerrow South Dunedin	99/4975		7 November 1899	Revd Isaac Jolly Presbyterian Minister
426	8 November 1899	John Arthur Cotton Margaret Ann Stewart	John Arthur Cotton Margaret Ann Stewart 💍 1899/5060	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	34 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 26 years	In the house of Charles Stewart Clyde Street Dunedin	99/4956		8 November 1899	Revd W. Hewitson Presbyterian Minister
427	8 November 1899	George Edward Christensen Elizabeth Moore Fox	George Edward Christensen Elizabeth Moore Fox 💍 1899/4149	Bachelor Spinster	Ironmoulder	21 years 19 years	Rothesay Rothesay	2 years 2 years	In the house of John Fox Rothesay	99/5031	John Fox father of minor	8 November 1899	Revd C. S. Lemont Presbyterian Minister
428	10 November 1899	George Thornicroft Mary McQueen	George Thornicroft Mary McQueen 💍 1899/5066	Widower Spinster	Settler	63 years 59 years	Ravensbourne Ravensbourne	9 years 1 year	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	99/4939		10 November 1899	W. McCall Registrar of Marriages

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).