Intentions to Marry, 1855

Reference: Alexander Turnbull Library fMS-194

This document only includes a partial set of Intention to Marry records for 1855, relating to the Auckland and Otago districts. Unlike the registers at Archives NZ, this document does not consist of the original returns sent to the Registrar, but a poor quality photocopy of the original returns.

Imaged by Luke at the Alexander Turnbull Library in December 2024.

Page 3

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 March 1855 Registrar John Boyle Bennett

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
15	6 February 1855	John Reid Brown Sarah Margaret Hill	John Reid Brown Sarah Margaret Hill 💍 1855/1785	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	21 23	Mahurangi Bank Street, Auckland	12 years 12 years	St Pauls Church Auckland	55/353		6 February 1855	Revd. J. F. Lloyd
16	12 February 1855	John Longmore Sarah Meneary	John Longmore Sarah Meneary 💍 1855/1191	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 24	Auckland North Shore	14 days 1 year	Mr Downing's House High Street, Auckland	55/9		12 February 1855	Revd. David Bruce
17	13 February 1855	William Brier Elizabeth Maria Scott	William Brier Elizabeth Maria Scott 💍 1855/1194	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner	25 19	Auckland Auckland	3 weeks 8 months	Victoria Hotel Auckland	55/10	Walter Scott, Father	13 February 1855	Revd. David Bruce
18	13 February 1855	James Keen Jane Williamson	James Keen Jane Williamson 💍 1855/1721	Bachelor Widow	Mariner	37 26	Auckland Auckland	21 years 13 years	St. Matthews Church Auckland	55/371		1 March 1855	Revd. F. Thatcher
19	14 February 1855	John Alfred Lloyd Ellen Fox	John Alfred Lloyd Ellen Fox 💍 1855/1540	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	26 16	Onehunga Onehunga	1 year 6 years	Onehunga Church (of England)	55/157	Anne Hill, Mother	14 February 1855	Revd. A. G. Purchas
20	17 February 1855	Brion Wilkinson Simpson Mary Ann Carter	Bryon Wilkinson Simpson Mary Ann Carter 💍 1855/2134	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	46 49	Newmarket Newmarket	6 weeks 5 weeks	St. Marks Church Remuera	55/172	Three months expired without application having been made for Marriage Certificate
21	19 February 1855	Thomas Beckham Henrietta Clinton Baddeley	Thomas Beckham Henrietta Clinton Baddeley 💍 1855/1737	Bachelor Spinster	Resident Magistrate	44 29	Grafton Road, Auckland Emily Place, Auckland	9 years 12 months	St. Paul's Church Auckland	55/355		20 February 1855	Revd. J. F. Lloyd

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 1899. 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).