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 067

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	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
1846	14 June 1864	John Ferguson Rebecca Usher formerly Brain	John Ferguson Rebecca Usher 💍 1864/9308	Bachelor Widow	Sergeant in the 40th Regt.	38 36	Otahuhu Grey Street Auckland	3 Weeks 4 months	St Paul's Church Auckland			14 June 1864	Rev John Kinderley
1847	14 June 1864	Benjamin William Chester Emma Pelley	Benjamin Hillman Cheshire Emma Pelley 💍 1864/4674	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	28 26	Chapel Street Auckland Chapel Street Auckland	5 mths 5 mths	The dwelling house of Bottom Pelley in Chapel St. Auckland			14 June 1864	Rev Joseph Long
1848	16 June 1864	James Felling Mary Ann Mangan	James Gelling Mary Ann Murray 💍 1864/3993 James Cain Mary Ann Clancy 💍 1864/5368 James Herlihy Mary Moran 💍 1865/8333 James Taylor Mary Ann Raitt 💍 1865/4062 James Moran Mary Anne Kean 💍 1864/5768	Bachelor Spinster	Sergt Major Military Train School Mistress 18 Regt.	27 23	Barracks Auckland Officers Bay Auckland	4 Months 8 Mths	The dwelling house of the said Mary Ann Mangan			16 June 1864	Rev David Bruce
1849	17 June 1864	George Bell Maria Elizabeth Tidmarsh	George Bell Maria Elizabeth Tidmarsh 💍 1864/4521	Bachelor Spinster	Ensign Waikatom Militia	25 17	Otahuhu Onehunga	2 Mos 6 Mths	St Mary's Church Parnell		William Tidmarsh father	June 1864	Rev J.S. Dudley
1850	18 June 1864	John Pearse Elizabeth Reece	John Pearce Elisabeth Reece 💍 1864/9284	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	40 29	Big Muddy Creek Big Muddy Creek	11 Yrs 9 yrs at Onehunga	The dwelling house of John Boatman	119/151		18 June 1864	Rev Richard Naishley
1851	20 June 1864	Julia Ryan Laishley		Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	23 21	Onehunga Onehunga	5 Mos 1 Week	St Peter's Church Onehunga			June 1864	Rev A.G. Purchas
1852	20 June 1864	William Tuck Mary Hayes	William Gunson Mary Dwyer 💍 1864/4452 William S Smith Mary Jones 💍 1864/5843 William Walker Mary Cameron 💍 1864/6190	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	28 26	Howick Howick	17 Yrs. 4 Mos	In the dwelling house of Lachlan McInnes Howick	17/152		July 1864	Rev Cotton Macky

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).