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 087

District of AUCKLAND Quarter ending 31 December 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
1971	11 October 1864	Thomas Dunlop Elizth Bennett	Thomas Dunlop Charlotte Bennett 💍 1864/8793	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 21	Auckland West Queen St	4 days 6 mths	St Patricks Roman Catholic Church			11 October 1864	Rev James McDonald
1972	12 October 1864	Robert Scott Mary Logan	Robert Scott Mary Logan 💍 1864/4467	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	36 25	Auckland Auckland	3 days 3 days	the office of the Registrar of marriages			12 October 1864	John M Wayland Registrar
1973	12 October 1864	Thomas Healy Ann Rogers		Widower Spinster	Tailor	35 30	Alberts St Auckland Auckland	20 yrs 5 yrs	the Primitive Methodist Chapel	203/95		26 October 1864	Rev Joseph Long
1974	14 October 1864	William Howell Agnes Jerome	William Howell Agnes Jerome 💍 1864/3623	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker Servant	21 19	Wakefields St Auckland Onehunga	8 yrs 1 yr	St Matthews Church	194/11	No Consent recorded	1 November 1864	Rev David Jones
1975	14 October 1864	Charles Hortonman Margaret McDonald	Charles Mossman Margaret McDonald 💍 1864/4470	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 22	Auckland Auckland	6 mths 7 yrs	the office of the Registrar of Marriages			14 October 1864	John M. Wayland Registrar
1976	14 October 1864	John Miller Sarah Thompson	John Miller Sarah Andrews 💍 1864/4846	Bachelor Widow	Boatman	43 54	Fields Lane Auckland Fields Lane Auckland	3 yrs 6 yrs	St Andrews Presbyterian Church	32/15		14 October 1864	Rev David Bruce
1977	15 October 1864	Thomas Waters Mary Frances Bradley	Thomas Waters Mary Frances Bradley 💍 1864/8805	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	28 25	Karangahape Rd Karangahape Rd	3 yrs 5 yrs	St Pauls Church	232/95		15 October 1864	Rev J.T. Lloyd
1978	15 October 1864	Alexander Nicol Margaret Watt	Alexander Nicol Margaret Watt 💍 1864/9287	Bachelor Spinster	Ship Wright	25 22	Onehunga Onehunga	2 yrs 4 days	His Dwelling House	228/95		15 October 1864	Rev Robt. Fairley

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).