Intentions to Marry, 1900 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840417, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, September 12 2025

1900 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 972

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 1900 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
166	17 April 1900	John Morgan Dugdale Mary Cecilia O'Halloran	John Morgan Drysdale Margaret Cecilia OHalloran 💍 1900/3346	Widower Spinster	Railway Employe	42 33	Roslyn Roslyn	16 years 1 year	In St. Joseph's Cathedral	00/2493		17 April 1900	Revd. P. Murphy, Roman Catholic Priest
167	17 April 1900	William Leonn McFarlane Catherine McOnie McMillan		Bachelor Spinster	Railway Employe	25 23	Dunedin Dunedin	25 years 7 years	In the house of Revd. William A. Sinclair	00/2485		17 April 1900	Revd. W. A. Sinclair, Wesleyan Minister
168	18 April 1900	Keith Stuart Ramsay Rosie Glendining	Keith Stuart Ramsay Rosie Glendining 💍 1900/1494	Bachelor Spinster	Shipping Agent	27 22	Dunedin Caversham	27 years 13 years	In the Presbyterian Church	00/2467		18 April 1900	Revd. D. Dutton, Presbyterian Minister
169	19 April 1900	William Harry Matthews Lena Mary Petersen	William Harry Matthews Lena Mary Petersen 💍 1900/3338	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	31 19	Dunedin Dunedin	31 years 8 months	In the house of William Lyall Scott	00/2477	Lena Petersen, mother of minor	19 April 1900	Revd. G. Brooke, Wesleyan Minister
170	20 April 1900	Albert Vallis Crawford Elizabeth Crawford	Albert Vallis Elizabeth Crawford 💍 1900/3347	Bachelor Spinster	Music Teacher	37 25	Dunedin Dunedin	13 years 25 years	In the house of Patrick Crawford, Hyde Street	00/2494		20 April 1900	Revd. Henry McCreary, Roman Catholic Priest
171	21 April 1900	Francis Henry Townsend Euphemia Wilson	Francis Henry Townsend Euphemia Wilson 💍 1900/1501	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	33 33	Dunedin Dunedin	1 week 33 years	In the house of Revd. James Gibb	00/2473		21 April 1900	Revd. James Gibb, Presbyterian Minister
172	21 April 1900	Simon Harker Mary Malcolm	Simon Harker Mary Malcolm 💍 1900/1493	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 27	Caversham Caversham	1 week 1 week	In the house of Elizabeth Harker	00/2466		21 April 1900	Revd. D. Dutton, 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).