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 693

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1901 Registrar M. J. Call

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
544	20 December 1901	Enrico Adrian McKinlay Mabel Clare Rayner	Enrico Adrian McKinley Mabel Clare Rayner 💍 1901/4949	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 10 days	In the house of James Johnson, William York Place, Dunedin	01/5501		20 December 1901	Revd F. W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
545	20 December 1901	Albert Butt Alice Kate Rosestow	Albert Cutt Alice Kate Bosestow 💍 1901/4957	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	28 years 25 years	Roslyn Dunedin	5 months 3 weeks	In the Wesleyan Church, Roslyn	01/5503		20 December 1901	Revd Richard Nelson, Wesleyan Minister
546	20 December 1901	David Johnston Jeanie Paterson Forrester	David Johnston Jeanie Patterson Forrester 💍 1901/4853	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	27 years 23 years	Dunedin South Dunedin	27 years 2 years	In the Knox Presbyterian Church, Dunedin	01/5472		20 December 1901	Revd Robert Mackie, Presbyterian Minister
547	20 December 1901	James Smith Gray McKenzie Delilah Westlake	James Smith Mary Jane Armstrong 💍 1901/3623 James Smith Jeannie Poole 💍 1901/2458	Bachelor Spinster	Boilermaker	24 years 27 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 2 years	In the house of Alfred Wilkinson, Forth Street, Dunedin	01/5469		20 December 1901	Major Henry Gallant, Salvation Army Officer
548	20 December 1901	Robert Cockburn Ann Elizabeth Bartlett	Robert Cockburn Ann Elizabeth Bartlett 💍 1901/4946	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	32 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 12 years	In the house of Joseph Bartlett, Mornington	01/5516		20 December 1901	Revd W. Scorgie, Presbyterian Minister
549	20 December 1901	David Anderson Tudor Margaret Bryden	David Anderson Tudor Margaret Dryden 💍 1901/4889	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor Butter	29 years 22 years	Kensington Dunedin	26 years 4 years	In the house of Mrs Margaret Bryden, Canongate Street, Dunedin	01/5485		20 December 1901	Revd W. A. Sinclair, Wesleyan Minister
550	20 December 1901	William Dickinson Catherine Hymen	William Dickinson Catherine Hymen 💍 1902/1055	Bachelor Spinster	Hairdresser	27 years 18 years	Caversham Caversham	3 years 10 years	In the house of David Hymen, Caversham	01/1268	David Hymen, father of Minor	20 December 1901	Revd D. Dutton, 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).