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 990

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
483	14 December 1900	James Nelson Jane Wilkinson	James Nelson Jane Wilkinson 💍 1900/5435	Bachelor Spinster	Mining Valuer	31 32	Dunedin Leaversham	3 days 20 years	In the house of James Wilkinson, Leaversham	00/5640		14 December 1900	Revd A. Dutton, Presbyterian Minister
484	15 December 1900	Charles John Wilkinson Sarah Gardner Anderson	Charles John Williamson Sarah Gardner Anderson 💍 1900/5350	Bachelor Spinster	Iron Turner	31 24	Roslyn North East Valley	24 years 20 years	In the house of Robert Anderson, North East Valley	00/5364		15 December 1900	Revd A. Borrie, Presbyterian Minister
485	15 December 1900	Harry Popham Braid Christina Arthur	Harry Braid Christina Arthur 💍 1900/5618	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	28 20	Dunedin North East Valley	28 years 18 years	In St. Martins Church	00/5883	William Arthur, father of minor	15 December 1900	Revd A.R. Fitchett, Church of England Minister
486	17 December 1900	Dennis William McKewen Mary Power	Dennis William McKewen Mary Power 💍 1900/5041	Bachelor Spinster	Barman	21 21	Dunedin South Dunedin	20 years 12 years	In St. Patricks Church	00/5349		17 December 1900	Revd James Delaney, Roman Catholic Priest
487	17 December 1900	Robert Rae Roscow Isabella Allen Leighton	Robert Rae Roscon Isabella Allen Leighton 💍 1901/674	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor's Cutter	28 23	Dunedin Dunedin	10 years 23 years	In the house of James Leighton, Dundas Street	01/1082		17 December 1900	Revd H. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
488	18 December 1900	Henry Mason Gowdy Mary Gowdy	Henry Mason Mary Gowdy 💍 1900/5676	Bachelor Spinster	Dredge Fitter	29 20	North East Valley North East Valley	2 years 10 years	In the house of Edwin Williamson Gowdy	00/5795	Edwin Williamson Gowdy, father of minor	18 December 1900	Revd W.T. Sinclair, Wesleyan Minister
489	18 December 1900	Philip William Scully Ellen Evans	Philip William Scully Ellen Evans 💍 1900/4656	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	34 29	Dunedin Dunedin	15 years 3 months	In the house of Dr. William Evans, High Street	00/5298		18 December 1900	Revd W. Saunders, Congregational Minister

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).