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 996

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
527	27 December 1900	Philip Reeder Ellen Douglas	Philip Reeder Ellen Douglas 💍 1900/5437	Bachelor Spinster	Dredgeman	37 29	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 14 days	In the Presbyterian Church, Caversham	00/5642	27 December 1900	Revd. D. Sutton, Presbyterian Minister
528	27 December 1900	Edward James Norris Margaret Holley	Edward James Norris Margaret Cleaver 💍 1900/4519	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 23	Dunedin Dunedin	4 months 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	00/5264	27 December 1900	W. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
529	27 December 1900	Thomas Lynn Smith Barbara Ann Cutwin Raper	Thomas Lynn Smith Barbara Ann Dapwin Raper 💍 1900/5603	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	26 26	South Dunedin South Dunedin	1 week 3 months	In the house of John Smith, South Dunedin	00/5743	27 December 1900	Revd. Isaac Jolly, Presbyterian Minister
530	27 December 1900	Archibald Lothian Drydens Florence Hannah Fletcher Oliver	Archibald James Lothian Dryden Florence Hannah Fletcher Oliver 💍 1901/773	Bachelor Spinster	Limeburner	24 26	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 26 years	In the house of Mrs. Elizabeth Oliver, Dundas Street, Dunedin	01/1162	27 December 1900	Revd. George Heighway, Congregational Minister
531	27 December 1900	George Carlyle Brooke Eliza Jane Kincaids	George Carlyle Eliza Jane Kincaid 💍 1901/703	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	36 23	Dunedin Caversham	1 week 5 months	In the house of Mrs. Elizabeth Crampton, Caversham	01/1118	27 December 1900	Revd. T. S. Brooke, Wesleyan Minister
532	28 December 1900	James Allan Steel Jenkins Christina Ritchie	James Allan Steel Jenkins Christina Ritchie 💍 1900/5604	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 26	South Dunedin South Dunedin	1 week 3 days	In the house of John McKinnon, South Dunedin	00/5744	28 December 1900	Revd. Isaac Jolly, Presbyterian Minister
533	28 December 1900	John Pollock Katherine McKennan	John Pollock Katherine McLennan 💍 1900/5017	Bachelor Spinster	Draughtsman	40 30	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 5 months	In the house of William Gerard, Jolly, Leith Street, Dunedin	00/5286	28 December 1900	Revd. W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).