Intentions to Marry, 1919 Cust to Dunedin

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840486, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

1919 is bound in seven volumes (a to g) with continuous page numbers. Each volume contains a different set of districts, going from north to south.

1919f contains pages 2521-2942, covering districts from Cust to Dunedin

Page 2786

District of Dunedin Quarter ending 31 March 1919 Registrar H. Maxwell

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

6 January 1919

Frederick Adolphus Harper
Marion Christie Bain

Frederick Adolphus Harper
Marion Christie Bain
💍 1919/755

Bachelor
Spinster

Groom

46
36

Dunedin
Dunedin

30 years
36 years

House of Rev. C. Eaton, Royal Terrace, Dunedin

607

6 January 1919

C. Eaton, Methodist

No	6
Date of Notice	6 January 1919
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Frederick Adolphus Harper	Marion Christie Bain
	💍 1919/755
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Groom
Age	46	36
Dwelling Place	Dunedin	Dunedin
Length of Residence	30 years	36 years
Marriage Place	House of Rev. C. Eaton, Royal Terrace, Dunedin
Folio	607
Consent
Date of Certificate	6 January 1919
Officiating Minister	C. Eaton, Methodist

7 January 1919

Ernest Theodore Johnson
Ruth Olive Bell

Ernest Theodore Johnson
Ruth Olive Bell
💍 1919/756

Bachelor
Spinster

Clerk

28
24

Dunedin
Dunedin

28 years
24 years

Baptist Church, South Dunedin

608

7 January 1919

E. Nicholls, Baptist

No	7
Date of Notice	7 January 1919
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Ernest Theodore Johnson	Ruth Olive Bell
	💍 1919/756
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Clerk
Age	28	24
Dwelling Place	Dunedin	Dunedin
Length of Residence	28 years	24 years
Marriage Place	Baptist Church, South Dunedin
Folio	608
Consent
Date of Certificate	7 January 1919
Officiating Minister	E. Nicholls, Baptist

7 January 1919

Henry Thomas Graves
Margaret Duncan

Henry Thomas Graves
Margaret Duncan
💍 1919/757

Daniel Thomas Weir
Margaret Duncan
💍 1919/5287

Widower
Widow

Caretaker

56
42

Dunedin
Dunedin

3 months
20 years

House of Rev. R. Raine, Wesley Street, South Dunedin

609

7 January 1919

R. Raine, Methodist

No	8
Date of Notice	7 January 1919
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	Henry Thomas Graves	Margaret Duncan
	💍 1919/757
BDM Match (71%)	Daniel Thomas Weir	Margaret Duncan
	💍 1919/5287
Condition	Widower	Widow
Profession	Caretaker
Age	56	42
Dwelling Place	Dunedin	Dunedin
Length of Residence	3 months	20 years
Marriage Place	House of Rev. R. Raine, Wesley Street, South Dunedin
Folio	609
Consent
Date of Certificate	7 January 1919
Officiating Minister	R. Raine, Methodist

8 January 1919

John Hughes Fitzgibbons
Mary Elizabeth McIntyre

John Hughes Fitzgibbons
Mary Elizabeth McIntyre
💍 1919/734

Bachelor
Widow

Soldier

44
45

Dunedin
Dunedin

3 days
13 years

Registrar's Office, Dunedin

610

8 January 1919

H. Maxwell, Acting Registrar

No	9
Date of Notice	8 January 1919
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	John Hughes Fitzgibbons	Mary Elizabeth McIntyre
	💍 1919/734
Condition	Bachelor	Widow
Profession	Soldier
Age	44	45
Dwelling Place	Dunedin	Dunedin
Length of Residence	3 days	13 years
Marriage Place	Registrar's Office, Dunedin
Folio	610
Consent
Date of Certificate	8 January 1919
Officiating Minister	H. Maxwell, Acting Registrar

8 January 1919

George William Wilson
Ivine Tanton Forrester

George William Wilson
Irine Tanton Forrester
💍 1919/735

Bachelor
Spinster

Clerk

26
25

Dunedin
Dunedin

4 years
25 years

Methodist Church, Queens Drive, St. Kilda

611

8 January 1919

J. R. Nelson, Methodist

No	10
Date of Notice	8 January 1919
	Groom	Bride
Names of Parties	George William Wilson	Ivine Tanton Forrester
BDM Match (98%)	George William Wilson	Irine Tanton Forrester
	💍 1919/735
Condition	Bachelor	Spinster
Profession	Clerk
Age	26	25
Dwelling Place	Dunedin	Dunedin
Length of Residence	4 years	25 years
Marriage Place	Methodist Church, Queens Drive, St. Kilda
Folio	611
Consent
Date of Certificate	8 January 1919
Officiating Minister	J. R. Nelson, Methodist

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 1908. 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).