Intentions to Marry, 1901 South Island

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840420, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, September 22 2025

1901 is bound in two volumes, North Island districts and South Island districts.

Page 692

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1901 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
537	18 December 1901	Thomas Anderton Ruth Knight	Thomas Anderton Ruth Knight 💍 1901/4862	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	28 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	1 month 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	01/5456		18 December 1901	W. J. Hall Registrar of Marriages
538	18 December 1901	James Paterson Brown Mary Todd	James Paterson Brown Mary Todd 💍 1901/4910	Bachelor Spinster	Dredgeman	27 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	10 days 10 days	In the house of Revd W. A. Sinclair	01/5483		18 December 1901	Revd W. A. Sinclair Wesleyan Minister
539	18 December 1901	William Minder Flora Annie Shingleton	William Winder Flora Annie Shingleton 💍 1901/5971	Bachelor Spinster	Expressman	26 years 23 years	North East Valley North East Valley	22 years 14 years	In the house of Mrs Mary Ann Shingleton, North East Valley	01/5468		18 December 1901	Revd Frederick Shiner Baptist Minister
540	18 December 1901	Henry George Freeman Margaret Graham Meir	Henry George Freeman Margaret Graham Weir 💍 1901/4911	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	29 years 22 years	North East Valley Dunedin	29 years 22 years	In the house of Mrs Elizabeth Meir Hanover Street Dunedin	01/5484		18 December 1901	Revd W. A. Sinclair Wesleyan Minister
541	18 December 1901	George Samuel Baker Christina Maddell	George Samuel Baker Christina Waddell 💍 1901/4855	Widower Spinster	Tailor's Cutter	37 years 19 years	St. Kilda Kensington	7 months 4 years	In the Presbyterian Church South Dunedin	01/5473	Helen Traddell Guardian of Minor	18 December 1901	Revd Robert Mackie Presbyterian Minister
542	19 December 1901	William Thomas Rowlands Margaret Ann Dennison	William Thomas Rowlands Margaret Ann Dennison 💍 1901/4888	Bachelor Spinster	News Agent	21 years 18 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	4 months 6 years	In the house of Revd Robert Mackie South Dunedin	01/5474	David Mitchell Dennison father of minor	19 December 1901	Revd Robert Mackie Presbyterian Minister
543	19 December 1901	James Ritchie Eleanor Agnes Crocome	James Ritchie Eleanor Agnes Crocome 💍 1901/6208	Bachelor Spinster	Cooper	40 years 27 years	North East Valley Dunedin	10 years 1 month	In St Stephens Church Dunedin	01/5466		19 December 1901	Revd D. K. McIntyre Presbyterian 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 1901. 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).