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 101

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
2061	17 December 1864	William Pritchard Alice Ann Sophet	William Pritchard Alice Ann Soppett 💍 1864/8973	Widower Spinster	Architect	35 24	Seafield View Auckland Hobson St Auckland	5 Yrs 5 Yrs	St Matthews Church	52/55		17 December 1864	Rev David Jones
2062	17 December 1864	Samuel Proctor Margaret Edwin	Samuel Prictor Margaret Edwin 💍 1865/5615	Bachelor Spinster	Dressmaker	23 21	Cobourg Street Auckland Cobourg Street Auckland	5 Yrs 1 Yr	The dwelling House of the Brides parents	51/5		17 December 1864	Revd Alex Macdonald Auckland
2063	17 December 1864	Frederick James Anna Maria Ward	Fredk Jas Somerfield Anna Maria Ward 💍 1864/9374	Bachelor Spinster	Saddlers	25 24	Vincents St Auckland Wellington	1 Yr & 9 Mos 4 Yrs	The School Room Takapuna	42/85		17 December 1864	Rev Thos Kerr
2064	17 December 1864	William Stirling Agnes Frothie Symonds	William Stirling Agnes Crosbie 💍 1864/8653	Widower Spinster	Carter House Keeper	29 21	Symonds St Auckland From Stirling Auckland	5 Yrs From birth Auckland	The dwelling House of Mr Symonds	54/4		17 December 1864	Rev James Hill
2065	17 December 1864	William Page Annie Byrne	William Page Anne Byrne 💍 1864/4714	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	27 20	Elliot Street Auckland Edwardes St Auckland	5 Yrs From birth Auckland	The Primitive Methodist Chapel Chancery St		W Byrne Father	17 December 1864	Rev J. Jolley
2066	19 December 1864	Joseph Morris Isabella Harding		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	23 21	Grey Street Auckland Harding Street Auckland	6 Mos 2 Yrs	The dwelling House of Edwd Yates	22/45		19 December 1864	Rev Wm Jolley
2067	19 December 1864	William Jeffrey Sarah Williams	William Jeffrey Sarah Williams 💍 1864/4720	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	30 19	Barrack Street Auckland Vincent St Auckland	5 Yrs 17 Yrs	The dwelling House of Wm Williams	17 4/13		19 December 1864	Rev Wm Jolley

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).