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 492

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 31 March 1900

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
2052	24 January 1900	Corneluis Joseph Shine Sarah Ann Winifred Dobson	Cornelius Joseph Shine Sarah Annie Winifred Dobson 💍 1900/2606	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 20	Oamaru Oamaru	6 days 5 days	At the house of Mr. William Dobson situate at Island Cliff	00/1194	William Dobson (Father)	24 January 1900	Rev. Michael Howard, Roman Catholic Church
2053	29 January 1900	Herbert Mowbray Lemon Amy Louise Lemon	Herbert Mowbray Amy Louise Lemon 💍 1900/5794	Bachelor Spinster	Insurance Agent	31 24	Oamaru Oamaru	3 1/2 years 9 years	At St. Luke's Church at Oamaru	00/1197		29 January 1900	Ven. Archdeacon H. G. Gould, Church of England
2054	19 February 1900	Andrew Jack Elizabeth Evelyn West	Andrew Jack Elizabeth Eveline West 💍 1900/2622	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	25 24	Oamaru Oamaru	4 years 24 years	At the house of Mr. Robert West situate at Wansbeck Street Oamaru	00/1188		19 February 1900	Rev. R. J. Porter, Presbyterian Church of Otago & Southland
2055	21 February 1900	George Hepburn Agnes Sidey	George Hepburn Agnes Sidey 💍 1900/5689	Bachelor Spinster	Pastrycook	24 25	Oamaru Oamaru	12 years 23 years	At the house of Mr. James Sidey situate at Lune Street Oamaru	00/5817		21 February 1900	Mr. F. J. Franklyn, Church of Christ
2056	7 March 1900	James McLaren Margaret Jack	James McLaren Margaret Jack 💍 1900/2601	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	29 28	Oamaru Oamaru	25 years 28 years	At the house of Mr. John Jack situate at Alma Street, Oamaru	00/1189		7 March 1900	Rev. R. J. Porter, Presbyterian Church of Otago & Southland
2057	12 March 1900	John Smith Laura Jane Bollick	John Smith Laura Jane Colliet 💍 1900/1542 John Smith Margaret Annie Spencer 💍 1900/4762	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor Warner	26 27	Oamaru Ardgowan	4 days 10 years	At the Wesleyan Church situate at Eden Street, Oamaru	00/2634		12 March 1900	Rev. Josiah Ward, Wesleyan Church

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).