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 105

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	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
2505	14 October 1865	Andrew Donovan Ellen O'Brien	Andrew Donavan Elena O'Brien 💍 1865/5390	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Dressmaker	23 22	Auckland Auckland	1 year Same	Catholic Church Parnell	672	14 October 1865	Rev. O Barsanti
2506	5 October 1865	Benjamin Arch Clara Elizabeth Salt	Benjamin Arch Clara Elizabeth Salt 💍 1865/5717	Widower Spinster	Storeman Servant	28 28	Spring Bank Auckland Wakefield St Auckland	2 years 10 mth	St Paul's Church	274	21 October 1865	Rev. J of Lloyd
2507	6 October 1865	James Foster Isabella Ferguson	James Foster Isabella Ferguson 💍 1865/5060 Robert Taylor Isabella Ferguson 💍 1865/4373	Bachelor Spinster	Steward	36 32	Parnell Parnell	4 mths 11 mths	House of Mr Geace	38	20 October 1865	Rev. Jas Hill
2508	4 October 1865	John Cooper Sarah Robinson	John Cooper Sarah Robinson 💍 1865/5048	Bachelor Spinster	Soldier Servant	24 21	Auckland Grey Street Auckland	6 years 2 years	House of Mr Smith Kyber Pass Road	41	4 October 1865	Rev. Jas Hill
2509	9 October 1865	William Brandy Jane Clement	William Braund Jane Clements 💍 1865/4694	Widower Spinster	Ship Carpenter Servant	29 24	North Shore do	5 years 9 mths	Office of Registrar of marriages Auckland		4 October 1865	Registrar of marriages
2510	9 October 1865	John Browning Isabella Bruce	John Browning Isabella Bruce 💍 1865/5054	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	52 30	the market Freemans Bay	18 mths 3 1/2 years	House of Mr Bruce Freemans Bay	9	9 October 1865	Rev. Jas Hill

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).