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 21

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
120	7 December 1855	Henry Pearson Frances Irwin	Henry Pearson Frances Irwin 💍 1855/1636	Widower Widow	Dealer Dyer	51 45	Auckland Auckland	7 years 7 years	Registrar's Office	55/400	7 December 1855	John B. Bennett, Registrar of Marriages
121	11 December 1855	Samuel Jonkers Eleanor Robinson	Samuel Jonkers Eleanor Robinson 💍 1855/14	Bachelor Spinster	Servant at William Grey Hotel	26 26	Auckland Onehunga	4 months 8 years	All Saints Church, Howick	55/18	11 December 1855	Rev. V. Lush
122	13 December 1855	John Middleton Hamlin Anna Maria Hamlin	John Middleton Hamlin Anne Maria Hamlin 💍 1855/1448	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 18	Panmure Tamaki	11 years 1 year	Tamaki Church of England	55/142	14 December 1855	Rev. Archdeacon Abraham
123	15 December 1855	John Scholes Caroline Wotton	John Scholes Caroline Wotton 💍 1855/1179	Widower Widow	Brewer	35 31	Parnell Parnell	18 months 2 years	At the dwelling house of Mr John Scholes, Parnell	55/5	15 December 1855	Rev. David Bruce
124	16 December 1855	George Bush Hair Clara Wiffin	George Bush Hair Clara Wiffen 💍 1855/1688	Widower Spinster	Watchmaker	47 36	Auckland Auckland	5 months 3 months	St. Matthews Church, Auckland	55/379	18 December 1855	Rev. F. Thatcher
125	18 December 1855	John Wallace Agnes Mitchell	John Wallace Agnes Mitchell 💍 1855/1182	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	26 32	Papatoetoe Auckland	14 years 6 years	Dwelling house of Archibald Clark, Shortland Street, Auckland	55/6	18 December 1855	Rev. David Bruce
126	21 December 1855	Alexander Mackey Margaret Henderson	Alexander MacKay Margaret Henderson 💍 1856/1073	Widower Spinster	Farmer	40 32	North Shore North Shore	16 years 18 months	At the dwelling house of Alexander Macky, North Shore	56/67	21 December 1855	Rev. Davis Bruce

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).