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 1043

District of Oamaru Quarter ending 31 December 1900

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
2103	30 October 1900	John Steven Johnston Ellen Burrie Scoullar	John Steven Johnston Ellen Currie Smillie 💍 1900/5279	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 24	Awamoa Awamoa	25 years actual residence 24 years residence at Awamoa	General Registry Office	00/5505	30 October 1900	Rev John Steven
2104	1 November 1900	Alexander Paterson Jessie Darling	Alexander Paterson Jessie Carling 💍 1900/5274	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Domestic Servant	24 23	Oamaru Oamaru	3 days 3 days	The office of the Registrar of Marriage Oamaru	00/5501	1 November 1900	Registrar of Marriages Oamaru
2105	3 November 1900	Harry Christian Chrimeson Annie Ferguson	Harry Christian Christeson Annie Ferguson 💍 1900/5288	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	32 21	Mundoor Park Oamaru	10 years residence of Mr Andrew 1 year residence, Mr Andrew Oamaru	Residence of Mr Andrew Lapine, Oamaru	00/5491	3 November 1900	Rev Josiah Ward
2106	6 November 1900	John McKay Kathleen Lily Roche	John McKay Kathleen Lily Roche 💍 1900/5563	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Dressmaker	23 22	South Oamaru South Oamaru	22 years residence of Mr Alexander 22 years residence of Hannah at South Oamaru	Residence of Mr Alexander Hannah, South Oamaru	00/5497	6 November 1900	Rev Michael Howard
2107	12 November 1900	Robert William Burridge Ellen Jane Wright	Robert William Burbidge Ellen Jane Wright 💍 1900/5280 Robert William Speirs Lily Daisy Wright 💍 1900/111	Widower Spinster	Greengrocer	34 26	Oamaru Richmond's Oamaru	3 days Residence of Mr Charles Wright 2 months Rubble Mill Oamaru	Residence of Mr Charles Wright, Oamaru	00/5506	12 November 1900	Rev John Steven
2108	28 November 1900	Charles Bedford Kathleen Jones	Charles Bedford Kathleen Jones 💍 1900/5275	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd	29 21	Black Point Black Point	5 months Office of Registrar of Marriage 5 months at Oamaru	Office of Registrar of Marriage at Oamaru	00/5502	28 November 1900	Registrar of Marriages at Oamaru

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).