Intentions to Marry, 1900 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840418, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, September 12 2025

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

Page 505

District of Tokomairiro Quarter ending 30 September 1900 Registrar R. C. Black

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
859	12 July 1900	Armine George Drake Rosalind Kitty Brooking	Armine George Drake Rosalind Kitty Bastings 💍 1900/4085	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Home duties	28 20	Clarendon Millburn Milton	9 months 20 years	St John's Church, Milton	00/4010	12 July 1900	J. C. Small
860	3 August 1900	Reginald Arthur Pyle Sarah Hales Walker	Reginald Arthur Pyke Sarah Hales Walker 💍 1900/2131	Widower Spinster	Journalist Home duties	41 33	Milton Dunedin	4 years 6 years	All Saints Church, Dunedin	00/3816	3 August 1900	A. R. Fitchett
861	3 August 1900	Antony James Wisnesky Margaret Tarbot	Antony James Wisnesky Margaret Tarket 💍 1900/5584	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic servant	29 25	Waihola Waihola	27 years 15 days	Roman Catholic Chapel, Waihola	00/5541	3 August 1900	James O'Neill
862	8 August 1900	Robert Gray Lookhart Margaret Longden	Robert Gray Lochart Margaret Wyber 💍 1900/5745	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Home duties	30 33	Milton Milton	30 years 33 years	Mrs. Longden's House, Milton	00/4013	8 August 1900	George Miller
863	13 August 1900	John Wylie Annie Welham	John Wyber Annie Eliza Welham 💍 1900/4088	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Home duties	26 27	Milton Milton	26 years 27 years	St John's Church, Milton	00/4011	13 August 1900	J. C. Small
864	14 August 1900	William McMurray Jane McMurray	William McIntosh Jane McMurray 💍 1900/4090	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Dressmaker	31 30	Milton Fairfax, Milton	31 years 30 years	House of Mrs. McMurray, Fairfax, Milton	00/4014	14 August 1900	George Miller
865	15 August 1900	Robert Wylie Isabella McDonald	Robert Wallace Isabella Reid 💍 1900/118	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Home duties	30 22	Milton Fairfax, Milton	30 years 22 years	House of Mr. Archibald McDonald, Fairfax, Milton	00/4015	15 August 1900	George Miller
866	20 August 1900	Horace Leslie Bastings Marion Fisher	Horace William Bastings Marion Fisher 💍 1900/4089	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic duties	24 24	Milton Milton	24 years 24 years	St John's Church, Milton	00/4012	20 August 1900	J. C. Small
867	11 September 1900	Robert Storie Martha Orluske	Robert Storie Martha Orluski 💍 1900/5585	Widower Spinster	Iron turner Domestic duties	28 25	Dunedin Waihola	15 years 2 weeks	Catholic Church, Waihola	00/5542	11 September 1900	Jas. O'Neill

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).