1865 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840377, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 092

District of Auckland Quarter ending Jan - Dec

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
2427	11 August 1865	Frederic Simson Armfell Jane Susanna Whitaker	Frederic Simon Armfelt Jane Susanna Whitaker 💍 1865/5705	Bachelor Spinster	Lieut. H.M. 43rd L.I.	21 21	Royal Hotel Auckland Auckland	2 mths fm. birth	St. Paul's Church		11 August 1865	Rev. J.F. Lloyd
2428	14 August 1865	James Willetts Ellen Maria Daves	James Willetts Maria Ellen Davies 💍 1865/4310	Bachelor Spinster	Brickmaker	26 18	North Shore do	20 years 14	House of Wm Daves North Shore	Wm Daves father	14 August 1865	Rev. D Bruce
2429	15 August 1865	Henry Thornton Eliza Jane Carbines	Harry Thornton Tubbs Eliza Jane Carbines 💍 1865/4445	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	22 21	Freemans Bay Auckland Nelson Street Auckland	18 mths 4 years	House of Mrs Carbines Nelson Street Auckland		15 August 1865	Rev. P.H. Cornford
2430	18 August 1865	John Witten Ann Burton	John Witten Ann Burton 💍 1865/4814	Bachelor Spinster	Nurseryman	31 30	Usually at Panmure in Auckland Auckland	11 days 1 week	The Three Kings Institution		3 October 1865	Rev. Thos Buddle
2431	16 August 1865	William Reynolds Sarah Westfold	William Reynolds Sarah Westfold 💍 1865/5711	Bachelor Spinster	Lawyer	32 28	Usually at Auckland in Auckland Usually at Auckland Nelson Street Auckland	3 days 3	St. Paul's Church		16 August 1865	Rev.
2432	16 August 1865	Alexander Hallagan Elizabeth McCarthy	Alexander Hallagan Elizabeth McCarthy 💍 1865/4610	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer Dressmaker	34 22	Albert Street Auckland do	1 year from birth	St. Matthews Church		16 August 1865	Rev. E.N. Bree

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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).