1857 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840369, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 13 2024

Page 037

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 1857

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
355	12 November 1857	Alexander Fleming Isabella Fleming	Alexander Fleming Isabella Fleming 💍 1857/1174	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 28	Freeman's Bay, Auckland Freeman's Bay, Auckland	20 years 12 months	The dwelling house of Mr Joseph Leet, Napier Street, Auckland		12 November 1857	Revd David Bruce
356	13 November 1857	William Anderson Jane Donnelly	William Anderson Jane Donnelly 💍 1857/1081	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 16	Titirangi Titirangi	4 months 4 years	St Paul's Church, Auckland	James Donnelly, Father	13 November 1857	Revd J. F. Lloyd
357	13 November 1857	William Minery Henrietta Anne Reed	William Menary Harriet Anne Reed 💍 1857/1177	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	35 19	Papakura Short Shore	15 years 5 years	The Private Residence of the Revd D. Bruce, Auckland	James Reed, Father	13 November 1857	Revd David Bruce
358	18 November 1857	John Davis Williams Charlotte Travers	John Davis Williams Charlotte Travers 💍 1857/1350	Widower Spinster	Storekeeper	29 21	Onehunga Auckland	6 years 12 months	St Peter's Church, Onehunga		18 November 1857	Revd A. G. Purchas
359	10 November 1857	William Randall Finlason Barbara Taylor	William Randall Finlayson Barbara Taylor 💍 1857/1107	Widower Widow	Clerk	32 25	Auckland Auckland	2 years 11 years	St Matthew's Church, Auckland		18 November 1857	Revd David Jones
360	25 November 1857	George Addison Eliza Fleming	George Addison Eliza Gavanan 💍 1857/1249	Widower Spinster	Cooper	58 35	Onehunga Onehunga	10 years 8 months	Roman Catholic Church, Onehunga		25 November 1857	Revd Mr Cleary
361	26 November 1857	John Seals Julia Dinane	[No matching marriage registration has been located]	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor	22 17 9/12	Auckland Howick	5 years 10 years	Roman Catholic Church, Howick	Michael Dinane, Father	27 November 1857	Revd J. W. Fynes

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).