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 637

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 30 June 1901 Registrar W. 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
175	10 April 1901	William Rowland Hayward Annie Johnson	William Rowland Haywood Annie Johnson 💍 1901/2379	Bachelor Spinster	Furniture Warehouseman	28 years 30 years	Dunedin Dunedin	14 years 29 years	In St. Andrews Church, Dunedin	01/2710		10 April 1901	Revd. Dr. Waddell, Presbyterian Minister
176	10 April 1901	Moss Haslemore Jessie Frerise	Moss Haslemore Jessie Trerise 💍 1901/2640	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	30 years 22 years	Dunedin Dunedin	3 months 22 years	In the house of Frank Davis, Hope Street, Dunedin	01/2798		10 April 1901	Revd. F. L. Sinclair, Wesleyan Minister
177	10 April 1901	Reginald Albert Dutton Emily Eliza Pegler	Reginald Albert Dutton Emily Eliza Pegler 💍 1901/910	Bachelor Spinster	Chemist	27 years 24 years	South Dunedin South Dunedin	6 weeks 8 weeks	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	01/2670		10 April 1901	W. J. Call, Registrar of Marriages
178	10 April 1901	Thomas Kennedy Annie Jackson	Thomas Kennedy Annie Jackson 💍 1901/2292	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	21 years 18 years	South Dunedin Dunedin	9 years 1 week	In the house of Harry Early, Kensington	01/2754	Reuben Jackson, father of minor	10 April 1901	Revd. J. G. Brooke, Wesleyan Minister
179	11 April 1901	Robert McMecking Janet Esther Flint	Robert McMecking Janet Esther Flint 💍 1901/911	Widower Spinster	Gardener	35 years 35 years	St. Kilda St. Kilda	1 year 3 days	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	01/2671		11 April 1901	W. J. Call, Registrar of Marriages
180	11 April 1901	Charles Olsen Rosetta Martha Andrews	Charles Olsen Rosetta Martha Andrews 💍 1901/2347	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	42 years 24 years	Dunedin Dunedin	2 years 2 years	In the house of Alfred Mazengarb, Church of Christ, Dunedin	01/2792		11 April 1901	Revd. Alfred Mazengarb, Church of Christ
181	13 April 1901	Henry James Goodman Annie Mehaloke	Henry James Goodman Annie Mekalske 💍 1901/3597	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	27 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	5 years 10 years	In St. Patrick's Church, South Dunedin	01/4094		13 April 1901	Revd. James Coffey, Roman Catholic Priest

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).