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 988

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1900 Registrar William Joseph 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
469	4 December 1900	John Donald Cameron Jessie Buchan Beath	John Donald Cameron Jessie Buchan Beath 💍 1900/5349	Bachelor Spinster	Hat Manufacturer	24 years 25 years	Dunedin North East Valley	10 years 15 years	In the house of David Beath, North East Valley	00/5363	6 December 1900	Revd D. Borrie, Presbyterian Minister
470	7 December 1900	William Roseby Thomson Emma Jones	William Roseby Thomson Emma Jones 💍 1900/4655	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	29 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	29 years 25 years	In the house of John Bryce Thomson, Filleul Street	00/5297	7 December 1900	Revd W. Saunders, Congregational Minister
471	10 December 1900	Alfred Salis Tily Minnie Ethel Dark	Alfred Salier Tily Minnie Ethel Dark 💍 1900/5063	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	37 years 27 years	Caversham Caversham	20 years 1 year	In the house of John Maine Dark, Caversham	00/5399	10 December 1900	Revd P. J. Cossum, Methodist Minister
472	10 December 1900	Alfred Ernest Liggins Louisa Ladd	Alfred Ernest Liggins Louisa Ladd 💍 1900/5643	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	34 years 34 years	Dunedin Dunedin	34 years 1 week	In the house of James Liggins, York Place, Dunedin	00/5791	10 December 1900	Revd P. H. Favelough, Wesleyan Minister
473	10 December 1900	Olai Sedal Emily Le Brun	Olai Sedal Emily Le Brun 💍 1900/5045	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	31 years 21 years	Dunedin South Dunedin	5 years 21 years	In the house of Alexander Joseph Le Brun	00/5329	10 December 1900	Revd John Muirhead, Baptist Minister
474	10 December 1900	Richard William Lawrence Margaret Laing Watt	Richard William Lawrence Margaret Laing Watt 💍 1900/5058	Bachelor Spinster	Builder	25 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	25 years 5 years	In the Tabernacle, Great King Street	00/5395	10 December 1900	Revd Charles Watt, Church of Christ
475	11 December 1900	Olive Prosser Watson Wilhelmina Carey Campbell	Oliver Owen Watson Wilhelmina Carey Campbell 💍 1900/5888	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	36 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	36 years 13 years	In the house of Olive Prosser Watson, Maclaggan Street, Dunedin	00/5394	11 December 1900	Revd Charles Watt, Church of Christ

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).