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 057

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1864 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
1785	22 April 1864	James McGuire Ellen Sullivan	James McGuire Ellen Sullivan 💍 1864/8739	Bachelor Spinster	Well sinker Domestic Servant	22 17	Newton Chancery Lane, Auckland	9 years 10 years	St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, Auckland	James McGuire, Bridegroom, in absence from the Colony of any other person with Authority to Consent	22 April 1864	Rev J McDonald
1786	25 April 1864	Henry Edwards Catherine Jones formerly Kelly	Henry Edwards Catherine Jones 💍 1864/4306	Bachelor Widow	Labourer -	38 38	Durham Street, Auckland High Street, Auckland	19 years 16 years	The dwelling house of the Rev T. Buddle, Auckland		25 April 1864	Rev T. Buddle
1787	25 April 1864	James Canning Mary Ann Josephine Field	James Canning Mary Anne Josephine Field 💍 1864/9032	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	36 21	Parnell Parnell	6 years 18 years	St. John Baptist, Roman Catholic Church, Parnell		25 April 1864	Rev O Barsanti
1788	25 April 1864	John McCutchen Ellen Russell formerly Codey	John McCutchen Ellen Russell 💍 1864/8811	Bachelor Widow	Labourer -	37 29	Onehunga Onehunga	3 weeks 3 weeks	Roman Catholic Church, Onehunga		25 April 1864	Rev J Paul
1789	26 April 1864	William Gunson Mary Dwyer	William Gunson Mary Dwyer 💍 1864/4452	Bachelor Spinster	Military Settler -	27 22	Auckland Hotel, Auckland Barrack Street, Auckland	10 days 6 weeks	The Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Auckland		26 April 1864	Registrar of Marriages
1790	27 April 1864	Stephen Patrick South Elizabeth Josephine White	Stephen Patrick South Elizabeth Josephine White 💍 1864/8748	Widower Spinster	Storekeeper Domestic Servant	30 18	Otahuhu Spring Bank, Auckland	3 years 6 months	St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Auckland	Richard Wadeson White, Father	27 April 1864	Rev J McDonald

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 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).