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 053

District of AUCKLAND Quarter ending 30 June 1894 Registrar John M. Wayland

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
1760	2 April 1894	James Vann Marston Elizabeth Bishop	James Case Marston Elizabeth Bishop 💍 1864/4262	Widower Spinster	Solicitor	43 28	Auckland Auckland	18 years 12 months	The dwelling house of the said James Vann Marston on the Great North Road, Newtown, Auckland	2 April 1894	Revd. Thomas Hamer
1761	4 April 1894	Richard Murston Ebborn Emma Evans Osborn	Richard Thurston Ebborn Emma Evans Osborn 💍 1864/9293	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	29 24	Chapel Street, Auckland Cobourg Street, Auckland	1 month 1 month	St. Paul's Church, Auckland	4 April 1894	Revd. J. F. Lloyd
1761	4 April 1894	Robert Sinclair Patience Waters	Robert Sinclair Patience Waters 💍 1864/9245	Bachelor Spinster	Private Soldier H.M. 14 Regiment	23 22	Auckland Otahuhu	10 weeks 1 year	The Presbyterian Church at Otahuhu	4 April 1894	Revd. John Macky
1762	7 April 1894	Alexander Campbell Margaret McInnes	Alexander Campbell Margaret McInnes 💍 1864/4798	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Domestic Servant	37 27	Baker Street, Auckland Remuera	2 months 6 months	The dwelling House of Andrew Sinclair Esq at Remuera	7 April 1894	Revd. James Hill, Presbyterian
1763	8 April 1894	James Devin Caroline Keating	James Devin Caroline Keating 💍 1864/4449	Bachelor Spinster	Waiter	32 26	Previously at Melbourne Exchange Hotel - Auckland Previously at Melbourne Exchange Hotel - Auckland	3 days 3 days	The office of the Registrar of Marriages, Auckland	8 April 1894	John M. Wayland, Registrar
1764	8 April 1894	Montgomery Davies Jane Buswick formerly McIntyre	Montgomery Davies Jane Beswick 💍 1864/9221	Bachelor Widow	Labourer House Keeper	22 22	Kawau Kawau	1 year 2 years	The dwelling house of Alex Thomas Harris, Kawau	8 April 1894	Revd. Robert McKinney
1765	9 April 1894	Alexander Lynch Emma Walker	[No matching marriage registration has been located]	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Dressmaker	21 20	Grey Street, Auckland Symons Street, Auckland	1 year from birth	St. Mary's Church, Parnell	9 April 1894

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).