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 615

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 1901 Registrar J. Call Regr

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
22	17 January 1901	Lucerne Linton Smith Emily Mabel Cooper	Lucerne Linton Smith Emily Mabel Cooper 💍 1901/730	Bachelor Spinster	Stonemason	29 years 20 years	Dunedin Dunedin	7 weeks 7 weeks	In the house of Fraser Sherriff, Great King Street, Dunedin	01/1181	Thomas Nicholas Cooper, father of minor	17 January 1901	Revd Richard Wilson, Wesleyan Minister
23	18 January 1901	Alexander Strachan Stewart Isabella Greig	Alexander Strachan Stewart Isabella Greig 💍 1901/934	Bachelor Spinster	Bookbinder	31 years 29 years	Dunedin Mornington	6 years 6 years	In the house of David Greig, Mornington	01/1101		18 January 1901	Revd A. Scorgie, Presbyterian Minister
24	18 January 1901	George Rackley Nesbett Caroline Nesbett	George Kackley Caroline Josephine Nesbett 💍 1901/714	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	22 years 20 years	St Kilda Mornington	22 years 6 years	In St Joseph's Cathedral, Dunedin	01/1148	Henry Nesbett, father of minor	18 January 1901	Revd P. Murphy, Roman Catholic Priest
25	18 January 1901	Alexander Howard Hewitson Elizabeth Burley	Alexander Howard Elizabeth Burley 💍 1901/946	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	25 years 26 years	Dunedin Dunedin	8 months 4 years	In Knox Church, Dunedin	01/1090		18 January 1901	Revd J. Hewitson, Presbyterian Minister
26	19 January 1901	Thomas Leahy Begg Jane Alice Reid	Thomas Leahy Begg Jane Alice Reid 💍 1901/683	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	23 years 25 years	Dunedin Dunedin	4 years 20 years	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Dunedin	01/1069		19 January 1901	M. J. Hall, Registrar of Marriages
27	19 January 1901	John Adam Smith Hinnies Georgina Clark	John Adam Smith Finnie Georgina Clark 💍 1901/763	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	24 years 26 years	South Dunedin Portobello	1 week 26 years	In the house of George Johnstone Clark, Portobello	01/1175		19 January 1901	Revd A. Greig, Presbyterian Minister
28	21 January 1901	John Adam Crombie Spence Ann Dixon Stewart	John Adam Crombie Spence Ann Dixon Stewart 💍 1901/947	Bachelor Spinster	Bookkeeper	25 years 27 years	Dunedin North East Valley	10 years 16 years	In the house of Peter Stewart, North East Valley	01/1091		21 January 1901	Revd J. Hewitson, 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).