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 015 B

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1856

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
170	6 May 1856	Charles Baker Rosina Condly	Charles Baker Rosina Connolley 💍 1856/923	Bachelor Spinster	Soldier 58 Reg. Dress-maker	24 years 28 years	Grey Street, Auckland Grey Street, Auckland	2 years 14 months	St. Matthews Church, Auckland	6 May 1856	Revd F. Thatcher
171	8 May 1856	Christopher Colan Bridget Bridge	Christopher Nolan Bridget Bridge 💍 1856/1034	Widower Widow	Labourer	47 years 30 years	Lucas's Creek Auckland	12 months 6 months	Roman Catholic Church, Auckland	8 May 1856	Right Revd Bishop Pompallier
172	8 May 1856	James Hill Jane Brown	James Hill Jane Brown 💍 1856/947	Bachelor Spinster	Private, Royal Artillery Servant	26 years 23 years	Britomart Barracks Eden Crescent	5 months 5 months	St Paul's Church, Auckland	22 May 1856	Revd F. Thatcher
173	17 May 1856	Thomas Williams Emma McCarthy	Thomas Williams Emma McCarthy 💍 1856/1037	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	25 years 30 years	West Queen Street, Auckland Auckland	4 months 11 years	Roman Catholic Church	17 May 1856	Very Revd J.J.P. O'Reily, V.G.
174	19 May 1856	Frederick Waters Catherine Gibson	Frederick Waters Catherine Gibson 💍 1856/1136	Bachelor Spinster	Tin plate worker Dressmaker	20 years 17 years	Durham Street, Auckland Durham Street, Auckland	8 months 2 years	Independent Chapel, High Street, Auckland	19 May 1856	Revd Alexr Macdonald
175	19 May 1856	Edward William Allen Frances Wynne	Edward William Allen Frances Wynne 💍 1856/1106	Widower Widow	Carpenter	50 years 40 years	Nelson Street, Auckland Nelson Street, Auckland	8 years 7 years		5 June 1856	Revd Thomas Hamer
176	26 May 1856	Thomas Milner Jane Cameron	Thomas Milner Janet Cameron 💍 1856/950	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	28 years 21 years	New Plymouth Parnell, near Auckland	18 months 1 year	St Paul's Church, Auckland	26 May 1856	Revd J.F. Lloyd

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).