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 402

District of Timaru Quarter ending 31 March 1900 Registrar Alex. Montgomey

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
11	19 February 1900	George Goodman Minnie Mary Russell	George Goodman Minnie Mary Russell 💍 1900/40	Bachelor Spinster		24 years 19 years	Timaru Timaru	24 years 3 years	Dwellinghouse of J. Davis, Sandistown Timaru	00/979	Mary Davis mother	19 February 1900	Rev. J. Newman Buttle, Wesleyan Minister
12	20 February 1900	David James Roper Marie Sayb	David James Roper Marie Seyb 💍 1900/992	Widower Spinster	Compositor Housekeeper	46 years 23 years	Timaru Timaru	14 years 23 years	Dwellinghouse of D. J. Roper, Timaru	00/973		20 February 1900	Rev. W. B. Woodward, Primitive Methodist Minister
13	26 February 1900	Arthur Frederick Andrews Edith Ellen Harris	Arthur Frederick Andrews Edith Ellen Harris 💍 1900/993	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Housemaid	20 years 21 years	Timaru Timaru	14 years 21 years	Dwellinghouse of James Harris, Timaru	00/974	J. G. Andrews father	26 February 1900	Rev. W. B. Woodward, Primitive Methodist Minister
14	26 February 1900	George Burford Georgina Mackenzie	George Burford Georgina Mackenzie 💍 1900/44	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	30 years 24 years	Timaru Timaru	21 years 3 years	Dwellinghouse of James Burford, Timaru	00/988		26 February 1900	Rev. George Burgess, Congregational Minister
15	26 February 1900	Daniel O'Keefe Eva Telford	Daniel OKeefe Eva Trilford 💍 1900/45	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	28 years 21 years	Harrytorion Timaru	20 years 21 years	Catholic Presbytory, Timaru	00/984		26 February 1900	Rev. J. Lubman, Roman Catholic Priest
16	2 March 1900	Albert Foster Mary King Weir	Albert Foster Mary King Weir 💍 1900/41	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Dressmaker	31 years 21 years	Timaru Timaru	6 days 2 years	Dwellinghouse of Rev. J. Newman Buttle, Timaru	00/980		2 March 1900	Rev. J. Newman Buttle, Wesleyan Minister
17	22 March 1900	Arthur Wilson Emily Susannah Chiles	Arthur Wilson Emily Susannah Chiles 💍 1900/994	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 years 20 years	Timaru Timaru	5 years 8 years	Dwellinghouse of Edward Chiles, Maori Hill, Timaru	00/975	Edward Chiles father	22 March 1900	Rev. W. B. Woodward, Primitive Methodist Minister
18	26 March 1900	Frederick Magnus Shewan Minnie Rodgers	Frederick Magnus Shewan Minnie Rodgers 💍 1900/2656	Bachelor Spinster	Baker Dressmaker	26 years 23 years	Timaru Timaru	25 years 23 years	St. Mary's English Church, Timaru	00/1277		26 March 1900	Ven. Archdeacon H. W. Harper, Church of England Clergyman

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).