Intentions to Marry, 1864

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840376, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 100

District of AUCKLAND Quarter ending 31 December 1864

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
2054	12 December 1864	Frederick William Ruck Charlotte Ann Sarah Stuart Atkins	Frederick William Ruck Charlotte Ann Sarah Stewart Atkyns 💍 1864/8799	Widower Spinster	Captain H.M. 67. R.	26 23	Penrose Parnell		St. Pauls Church Auckland	22/11		12 December 1864	Rev. J.F. Lloyd
2055	14 December 1864	James Young Esther Ann Brieley	James Young Esther Ann Briley 💍 1864/4876	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber Servant	29 22	Queens Street Wellesley St	5 Years 2 Years	In the dwelling house of the said James Young	59/55		14 December 1864	Licensed by Licence
2056	14 December 1864	Charles William Clark Smith Susannah Sarah Gurdom	Charles William Clark Smith Sarah Purdon 💍 1864/4635	Bachelor Spinster	Lawyer Servant	21 19	Manukau Manukau	14 Years 11 Years	Corporation Church Onehunga	19/1	Susannah Swinson, mother	14 December 1864	Rev. C.M. Nelson
2057	14 December 1864	William Gage Frances Stevens	William Irlam Frances Goulden 💍 1864/4211	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	27 20	Elliot Street Auckland Chancery St Auckland	5 Weeks From birth	The Primitive Methodist Chapel Edwardes St. Auckland			17 December 1864	Rev. Lawry
2058	16 December 1864	James Hilgrove Mary Sebusker	James Titford Mary Schishker 💍 1865/4736	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 21	Wai-wera-wera Orewa	19 Years 2 Years	The Dwelling House of Capt Hilgrove at Orewa	104/17		16 December 1864	Rev. Thomas Noris
2059	18 December 1864	[UNCLEAR] Jennell Mary [UNCLEAR]arthy		Bachelor Spinster		23 16	Horwick Horwick	21 Years	Roman Catholic Church at Horwick		no persons consent recorded	30 December 1864
2060	16 December 1864	John Morris Margaret [UNCLEAR]ester	John Morrison Margaret McLeod 💍 1864/4611	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	33 23	Hobson St Auckland Adelaide Street Auckland	8 Years 8 Years	In the dwelling house of Mr John Morrison Adelaide St Auckland			16 December 1864	Rev. 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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).