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 968

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 1900 Registrar M. 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
138	10 April 1900	Horatio Kinnear Flood Evelyn Teresa Coombs	Horatio Skinner Flood Evelyn Teresa Coombs 💍 1900/3289	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	30 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 17 years	In All Saints Church	00/2529	Charles Coombs, father of minor	10 April 1900	Revd A. R. Fitchett, Church of England Minister
139	10 April 1900	Samuel Eccles Jessie Allen Sinclair	Samuel Eccles Jessie Allen 💍 1900/1504	Bachelor Spinster	Confectioner	25 years 25 years	Dunedin Caversham	3 days 20 years	In the house of George Allen, Caversham	00/2496		10 April 1900	Revd J. Brooke, Wesleyan Minister
140	10 April 1900	Joseph Feltham Mader Elizabeth Povey	Joseph Feltham Elizabeth Povey 💍 1900/1594	Widower Spinster	Fruiterer	59 years 60 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	5 years 5 years	In the house of Revd John Muirhead, South Dunedin	00/2518		10 April 1900	Revd John Muirhead, Baptist Minister
141	10 April 1900	William Lumb Diana Bremner	William Lamb Diana Bremner 💍 1900/3361	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	27 years 23 years	North East Valley North East Valley	3 years 8 months	In the house of Charles Alfred Beal	00/2484		10 April 1900	Revd W. H. Sinclair, Wesleyan Minister
142	10 April 1900	Lionel Beecher Swete Margaret May Mangan	Lionel Beecher Sivete Margaret May Morgan 💍 1900/1595	Bachelor Spinster	Coach Builder	32 years 26 years	South Dunedin Dunedin	25 years 2 years	In the house of Charles Mangan, North East Valley	00/2519		10 April 1900	Revd D. Borrie, Presbyterian Minister
143	10 April 1900	Alexander Hamilton Maria Edith Kennard	Alexander Hamilton Maria Edith Kennord 💍 1900/3286	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	41 years 25 years	Kensington Dunedin	15 years 20 years	In the house of George Kennard, Cumberland Street	00/2526		10 April 1900	Revd D. Haddell, Presbyterian Minister
144	10 April 1900	John William Sharp Elizabeth Mary Keenan	John William Sharp Elizabeth Mary Keenan 💍 1900/3353	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	22 years 22 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	2 years 5 years	In St. Patrick's Church, South Dunedin	00/2499		10 April 1900	Revd James Coffey, 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).