Intentions to Marry, 1866

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840378, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 101

District of Auckland Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
2754	2 July 1866	Andrew Mr. Groch Florinda Louisa Thompson	Andrew McGooch Florinda Louisa Thompson 💍 1866/4714	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 22	Auckland Auckland	3 yrs 6 yrs	the Edinbergh Castle Inn Kyber Pass Road	1044		2 July 1866	Revd. D. Bruce
2755	2 July 1866	Charles Chester Emma Howard	Charles Chester Emma Howard 💍 1866/4408	Widower Widow	Servant	38 28	Auckland Auckland	3 yrs 14 yrs	Dwelling house of Mrs Emma Howard, Mechanics Bay	9		2 July 1866	Revd. Jas. Buller
2756	3 July 1866	John W. E. Elwee Catherine Kyle	John McClure Catherine Kyle 💍 1866/5101	Bachelor Spinster	Groom Cook	25 24	Auckland Auckland	14 mos 14 mos	The dwelling house of Mr. Robert [UNCLEAR] in Auckland	238		July 3	Revd. Jas. Hill
2757	4 July 1866	Michael Head Mary Bryan	Michael Head Mary Breen 💍 1866/5443	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	34 25	Panmure Auckland	2 mos. 14 days	St. Patrick's R. Catholic Church in Auckland	2572		July 4	Very Revd. W. McDonald
2758	4 July 1866	Benjamin Tanner Lucy Anna Nicholson	Benjamin Tanner Lucy Anna Nicholson 💍 1866/4903	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	24 16	Newton Auckland	4 yrs 7 yrs	Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Auckland	171	Elizabeth Nicholson, mother	July 4	Revd. T. Dudley
2759	4 July 1866	Charles John Bond Anniz Sarah Tidmarsh Jones	Charles John Bond Annie Sarah Tidmarsh 💍 1866/5308	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	25 23	Parnell Parnell	7 yrs 21 yrs.	St. Mary's Church Parnell	307		July 4	Dr. Maunsell

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).