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 689

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 December 1901

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
517	10 December 1901	Michael Ford Rose Anna Bridgeman	Michael Ford Rose Anna Gridgeman 💍 1901/4999	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Employe	40 years 21 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	St. Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin	01/5526		10 December 1901	Revd. P. Murphy, Roman Catholic Priest
518	11 December 1901	Walter Hughes Martha Davies	Walter Hughes Martha Davies 💍 1901/4859	Bachelor Spinster	Brickmaker	25 years 36 years	Caversham Caversham	16 years 20 years	In the office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	01/5453		11 December 1901	Mr. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
519	11 December 1901	Hugh William Macdonald Anne Young Macfie	Hugh William Macdonald Anne Young Macfie 💍 1901/4943	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	25 years 25 years	North East Valley Mornington	20 years 3 years	In the house of James Macfie, Mornington	01/5513		11 December 1901	Revd. W. Scorgie, Presbyterian Minister
520	11 December 1901	William Indoe Georgina Rhoda Child	William McIndoe Georgina Rhoda Childs 💍 1901/4899	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	29 years 26 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	23 years 18 years	In the Presbyterian Church, South Dunedin	01/5475		11 December 1901	Revd. Robert Macfie, Presbyterian Minister
521	11 December 1901	John Torrence Lyle Georgina Baldwin	John Torrence Lyle Georgina Baldwin 💍 1902/1004	Bachelor Spinster	Hairdresser	23 years 19 years	Roslyn Dunedin	1 year 3 years	In St. Matthews Church, Dunedin	01/1942	Arthur Edward Baldwin, father of minor	11 December 1901	Revd. W. Lewison Siggers, Church of England Minister
522	13 December 1901	Enoch Willis Mary Henry Peterson	Enoch Willis Mary Henry 💍 1901/5195	Widower Spinster	Gardener	51 years 57 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	27 years 2 years	In the house of Catherine Peterson, South Dunedin	01/5562		13 December 1901	Revd. A. T. G. Chandler, Baptist Minister
523	13 December 1901	William Vardon Mallett Jane Anne Donovan	William Vardan Mallett Jane Anne Donovan 💍 1901/5205	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	31 years 31 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 27 years	In the house of Mrs. Fanny Harley, Great King Street, Dunedin	01/5571		13 December 1901	Revd. G. Heighway, Congregational 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).