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 056

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1864

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
1778	18 April 1864	Edward Leeming Johanna Sullivan	Edward Leeming Johanna Sullivan 💍 1864/8929	Bachelor Spinster	Military Clerk Domestic Servant	26 22	Auckland Grey st Auckland	3 days 1 month	St Patricks Roman Catholic Church in Auckland	18 April 1864	Rev J McDonald
1779	18 April 1864	Dalrymple Muir Jane Ingles	Dalrymple Muir Jane Inglis 💍 1864/9281	Widower Spinster	Carpenter	43 28	Parnell Onehunga	6 years 4 years	The dwelling house of Mr. Ingles at Onehunga	18 April 1864	Rev R. Laishley
1780	18 April 1864	Richard Arthur Sarah Elizabeth Buddle	Richard Arthur Sarah Elizabeth Buddle 💍 1864/4312	Bachelor	Land Agent	28	Symonds st Auckland	6 Years 3 Yrs	The dwelling house of Mr Thos Buddle in Auckland	18 April 1864	Rev T Buddle
1781	19 April 1864	John New Pegler Eliza Allen	John New Pegler Eliza Allen 💍 1864/4810	Bachelor	Engineer	26	Fitzroy Hotel, Auckland	1 1/2 years 1 1/2 years	St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Auckland	19th April 1864	Rev T. Hill
1782	19 April 1864	William McKenzie Catherine McKenzie	William McKenzie Catherine McKenzie 💍 1864/4781	Bachelor Spinster	Shipwright	25 21	Onehunga Onehunga	9 months 15 years	The dwelling of the Rev G. Brown at Onehunga	19 April 1864	Rev. G. Brown
1783	22 April 1864	Andrew Smith Mary Ann Hardwick	Andrew Smith Mary Ann Hardwick 💍 1864/9290	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	35 21	West Queen Street, Auckland Newton	10 years 3 years	St. Paul's Church, Auckland	22 April 1864	Rev J F. Lloyd
1784	22 April 1864	Peter McDonald Margaret Collins	Peter McDonald Margaret Collins 💍 1864/8745	Widower Spinster	Blacksmith	33 22	Wakefield Street, Auckland Wakefield Street, Auckland	1 month 1 1/2 years	St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Auckland	22 April 1864	Rev P McDonald

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 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).