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 647

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 1901 Registrar M. Call, Registrar

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
243	29 May 1901	John Davis Edith Matilda Hood	John Davis Edith Matilda Hood 💍 1901/2624	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	41 years 31 years	Maori Hill Mount Cargill	10 years 3 months	St Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin	01/2806		29 May 1901	Revd G. Robinson, Church of England Minister
244	29 May 1901	Albert King Janet Anderson	Albert King Janet Anderson 💍 1901/2368	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 years 23 years	Dunedin Dunedin	23 years 23 years	In the house of Charles Henry King, Athol Place, Dunedin	01/2705		29 May 1901	Revd W. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
245	30 May 1901	Arthur Thomas Griffiths Susanna Ellen Griffiths	Arthur Thomas Griffiths Susanna Ellen Griffiths 💍 1901/2269	Widower Widow	Butcher	44 years 30 years	Caversham Roslyn	27 years 3 months	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	01/2687		30 May 1901	J. D. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
246	30 May 1901	Charles Alexander Smaill Jane Glendining Sanderson	Charles Alexander Swaill Jane Glendining Sanderson 💍 1901/3595	Bachelor Spinster	Implement Fitter	27 years 27 years	Dunedin South Dunedin	2 years 3 years	In the house of Alexander McDonald, South Dunedin	01/4097		30 May 1901	Revd H. Cameron, Presbyterian Minister
247	30 May 1901	Thomas Stanley Hopkins Annie Kimpenny	Thomas Stanley Hopkins Annie Wimpenny 💍 1901/2302	Bachelor Spinster	Tram Driver	28 years 32 years	North East Valley Dunedin	18 months 4 years	In the house of William Kimpenny, Rattray Street, Dunedin	01/2757		30 May 1901	Revd D. G. Brooke, Wesleyan Minister
248	31 May 1901	Robert Thomson Connelly Christina Cowley Spiers	Robert Tomson Connelly Christina Gourly Spiers 💍 1901/3650	Bachelor Spinster	Mill Worker	23 years 20 years	Roslyn Roslyn	20 years 10 years	In the house of Arthur Bevin, Roslyn	01/4101	Bertram Spiers, father of minor	31 May 1901	Revd R. R. M. Sutherland, Presbyterian Minister
249	31 May 1901	Walter Brown Morgan Laura Ellen Palmer	Walter Brown Morgan Laura Esther Palmer 💍 1901/2346	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	29 years 25 years	Port Chalmers Ravensbourne	24 years 24 years	In the house of James Palmer, Ravensbourne, Port Chalmers	01/2791		31 May 1901	Revd Geo. Haghway, 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).