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 094

District of AUCKLAND Quarter ending 31 December 1894

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
2013	8 November 1894	James Jos Holland Agnes Helen McKenzie	James Job Holland Agnes Melvin McKenzie 💍 1864/4617	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	23 22	Wellington Street Auckland Albert Street Auckland	3 mths 3 yrs	The Dwelling House of Mrs Kenzie Albert St	730/94		12 November 1894	Rev Thomas Hamer
2014	8 November 1894	John Cowmeadow formerly Brown Sarah Connell		Widower	Domestic Servant	40	Elliot Street Auckland	9 yrs	The Primitive Methodist Church, Auckland	847/94		14 November 1894	Rev J. Olphert
2015	8 November 1894	Michael Dunbar Eliza Ann Barnes		Bachelor Spinster	Carter	35 26	Wellington St Auckland Mount Street Auckland	18 mths 2 " "	St Pauls Church Auckland	867/94		8 November 1894	Rev. J. Bates
2016	9 November 1894	William. Islam Frances Goulden	William Irlam Frances Goulden 💍 1864/4211	Bachelor Spinster	Waikato Militiaman	25 20	Onehunga Parnell	2 mths 7 mths	St Andrews Presbyterian Church Auckland	868/94	William Islam Bridegroom in absence of any person competent to give Consent	9 November 1894	Rev David Bruce
2017	9 November 1894	Joshua Bennett Margaret Allum	Joshua Bennett Margaret Allum 💍 1864/8970	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Dressmaker	25 27	Elliot St Auckland Elliot St Auckland	7 yrs 6 mths	St Matthews Church Auckland	876/94		29 November 1894	Rev. - David Bruce
2018	10 November 1894	Alfred Edward Bennett Sarah Ann Wright		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic Servant	24 24	Newton Auckland	4 mths 2 " "	St Marys Church Parnell	875/94		22 November 1894	Rev B.T. Dudley
2019	10 November 1894	William Hanson Harriet Buller	William Hanson Harriet Buller 💍 1864/4348	Widower Spinster	Carpenter	38 38	Wellington Street Auckland Wakefield St Auckland	6 " " 4 " "	The Dwelling House of William White Auckland	899/94		10 November 1894	Rev. Thos Burton

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).