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 995

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1900 Registrar W. J. McCall

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
520	24 December 1900	Mark Lamber Helena Veronica Long	Mark Comber Helena Veronica Long 💍 1900/5351	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	24 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 5 years	In St. Patrick's Church, South Dunedin	00/5365		24 December 1900	Revd James Delany, Roman Catholic Priest
521	24 December 1900	George Herbert Boyles Agnes Barry Withers	George Herbert Boyles Agnes Barry Aitken 💍 1900/5056	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 years 24 years	Dunedin Sandy Mount	3 days 12 years	In the Highcliffe Hall, Highcliffe	00/5392		24 December 1900	Revd L. Greig, Presbyterian Minister
522	26 December 1900	George Peter Gay Jane Beavers	George Peter Gay Jane Beavers 💍 1901/766	Bachelor Spinster	Stationer	22 years 17 years	Dunedin Caversham	22 years 17 years	In the house of William Beavers, Caversham	00/117	William Beavers, father of minor	26 December 1900	Revd H. G. Chandler, Baptist Minister
523	26 December 1900	Robert David Nimmo Jessie Hamilton Rutherford	Robert David Minew Jessie Hamilton Rutherford 💍 1900/5220	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	24 years 30 years	Mornington Caversham	6 months 3 months	In the house of Robert Rutherford, Caversham	00/5312		26 December 1900	Revd D. Waddell, Presbyterian Minister
524	26 December 1900	Frederick Charles Andrews Helen Paterson Flett	Frederick Charles Andrews Helen Paterson Flett 💍 1900/5016	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In the house of Revd William Hewitson, Dunedin	00/5285		26 December 1900	Revd H. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
525	26 December 1900	John Rise Margaret Goodhall	John Dix Margaret Goodhall 💍 1900/4657	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	29 years 22 years	Dunedin South Dunedin	4 days 20 years	In the house of Revd James Gibb, Dunedin	00/5299		26 December 1900	Revd James Gibb, Presbyterian Minister
526	27 December 1900	James Percy Haywards Marama Gilbert Jackson	James Percy Hayward Marama Gilbert Jackson 💍 1900/5887	Bachelor Spinster	Salesman	27 years 27 years	Roslyn Roslyn	3 days 15 years	In the Baptist Church, Roslyn	00/5369		27 December 1900	Revd E. H. Howard, Baptist 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).