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 020

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30th of September 1856

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
196	26th July 1856	James Grant Anne McLeod	James Grant Anne McLeod 💍 1856/1096	Bachelor Spinster	Mason	28 21	Wyndham Street, Auckland Wyndham Street, Auckland	1 month 14 days	the dwelling house of Mr. Britain, Baker, Wyndham Street, Auckland	56/75		25th August 1856
197	6th August 1856	Hugh Evans Anne Graham	Hugh Evans Anne Graham 💍 1856/1055	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor	25 17	Manakau Manakau	9 months 2 1/2 years	St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, Auckland	56/61	William Graham, Father	6th August 1856	Very Rev. Dr McDonald
198	6th August 1856	Thomas Caulfield Matilda Willis Perren	"No certificate issued"	Bachelor Spinster	Sergeant 58th Regt. Dressmaker	31 21	Albert Barracks Albert, Whitakers Buildings, Auckland	5 years 2 years	St. Paul's Church, Auckland	No Folio Number		25th August 1856	Revd. J. F. Lloyd.
199	11th August 1856	John Edmond Bates Mary Hancock	John Edmond Bates Mary Hancock 💍 1856/962	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster	23 17	Princes Street, Auckland Eden Crescent, Auckland	3 years 2 years	St. Paul's Church, Auckland	56/30	William Hancock, Father	23rd August 1856	Revd. J. F. Lloyd.
200	15th August 1856	Richard Tucker Louisa Commons	Richard Tucker Louisa Commons 💍 1856/1109	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	22 18	Freeman's Bay Freeman's Bay	7 years 2 months	The dwelling house of Mr. Richard Tucker	56/79	Elizabeth Davies, Mother	15th August 1856	Revd. Thomas Homer.
201	15th August 1856	George Laing Jane Reid Somerville	George Laing Jane Reid Somerville 💍 1856/1147	Bachelor Spinster	Settler Dressmaker	31 21	Manakau Grey Street, Auckland	4 years 10 months	Dwelling house of Mr James Cox, Hobson St, Auckland	56/90		25th August 1856
202	16th August 1856	George Laing Jane Reid Somerville	George Laing Jane Reid Somerville 💍 1856/1147	Bachelor Spinster	Settler Dressmaker	31 21	Manakau Grey Street, Auckland	4 years 10 months	Dwelling house of Andrew Somerville, Grey Street, Auckland	56/90		1st September 1856	Revd. David 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).