1856 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840368, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 18 2024

Page 011

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 March 1856

Continuing on for the District of Auckland

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
144	25 February 1856	John McElwain Mary Fletcher Whiteley	John McElwain Mary Fletcher Whiteley 💍 1856/990	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 years 19 years	Piedmont, Suburbs of Auckland Auckland	4 years 11 months	Wesleyan Chapel Auckland	John Whiteley, Father	25 February 1856	Rev. J. A. Fletcher
145	28 February 1856	Angus McDiarmid Elizabeth Scott	Angus McDiarmid Elizabeth Scott 💍 1856/1115	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	28 years 28 years 11 months	Parnell Manganui	2 years 2 years	at the dwelling house of Mr John Scott, Mangaui	John Scott, Father	28 February 1856	Rev. John Macky
146	29 February 1856	George Holton Eliza Hibbert	George Rolton Eliza Hibbert 💍 1856/920	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	27 years 21 years	Hobson Street, Auckland Hobson Street, Auckland	18 months 8 years	St. Matthews Church Auckland		15 March 1856	Rev. F. Thatcher
147	13 March 1856	William McKelvie Jane Dixon	William McKelvie Jane Dixon 💍 1856/1081	Bachelor Spinster	Restaurant Keeper	23 years 28 years	Princes Street, Auckland Princes Street, Auckland	2 years 12 months	Scotch Church Auckland		13 March 1856	Rev. David Bruce
148	17 March 1856	Matthew Fleming Margaret Smith formerly Reedmald	Matthew Fleming Margaret Smith 💍 1856/1084	Widower Widow	Carpenter House-Keeper	56 years 35 years	Chapel Street, Auckland Mr. Geo. S. Lorimer's, Auckland	14 years 12 months	dwelling house of Mr. Geo. S. Lorimer		17 March 1856	Rev. David Bruce
149	19 March 1856	Joseph Scott Janet Fleming	Joseph Scott Janet Fleming 💍 1856/908	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	28 years 26 years	Hobson Street, Auckland Cook Street, Auckland	3 years 2 years	St. Barnabas Church, Parnell		19 March 1856	Rev. J. A. Kissling
150	19 March 1856	James Cromey Harriett Reynolds	James Dromey Harriet Reynolds 💍 1856/1023	Bachelor Spinster	Soldier 58th Regt.	24 years 18 years	Albert Barracks, Auckland Barrack Street, Auckland	3 years 2 years	Roman Catholic Church Auckland	Edward Reynolds, Father	19 March 1856

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).