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 124

District of Auckland Quarter ending Oct - 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
2955	10 October 1866	John Bennett Brickell Ellen Thompson	John Bennett Brickell Ellen Thompson 💍 1866/4939 Robert Bennett Brickell Catherine Thompson 💍 1866/4942	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 19	Howick Howick	3 days 17 yrs	Mr Catholic Church Howick	183	Mary Thompson, mother	10 October 1866	H. J. Fynes
2956	10 October 1866	Robert Bennett Brickell Catherine Thompson	Robert Bennett Brickell Catherine Thompson 💍 1866/4942 John Bennett Brickell Ellen Thompson 💍 1866/4939	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	19 18	Howick Howick	3 days From birth 18 yrs	Mr Catholic Ch	184	no one having authority Mary Thompson, mother	10 October 1866	H. J. Fynes
2957	10 October 1866	David Craig Sarah Emma Bennett	David Craig Sarah Emma Bennett 💍 1866/4756	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	20 23	Auckland Auckland	14 mths 14 mths	The dwelling House of Mr Wilson in Wyndham St.	118		10 October 1866	D. Bruce
2958	10 October 1866	David Lundon Sarah Waddel	David Lundon Sarah Waddel 💍 1866/4576	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	21 20	Union St. Auckland Hobson St. Auckland	15 yrs 12 yrs	St. Matthews Ch. Auckland	64		24 October 1866	E. N. Bree
2959	11 October 1866	John Shears Maria Clark	John Lambert Martha Clark 💍 1866/4564	Bachelor Widow	Mariner	49 30	Hobson St. Auckland Hobson St. Auckland	26 yrs 18 mths	St. Patrick's Auckland	365		11 October 1866	J. M. Donald
2960	11 October 1866	Oliver Goldsmith Maria Leatham	Oliver Goldsmith Maria Leathart 💍 1866/4393	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor	24 21	Big Muddy Creek Big Muddy Creek	7 yrs 7 yrs	The Woodman's Inn Big Muddy Creek	4		11 October 1866	A. Anderson
2961	12 October 1866	Andrew Hart Susan Brown		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	30 30	Overland Auckland	3 wks 8 yrs	The dwelling house of Mr. mal- last in Victoria Street.	175		20 October 1866	A. Macdonald
2962	12 October 1866	John Grey Ryland Ellen Susanna Ward	John Skey Ryland Ellen Susannah Ward 💍 1866/4345	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	21 26	Auckland Auckland	7 mths 7 mths	St. Mary's Church Parnell	310		12 October 1866	Dr. Maunsell
2963	15 October 1866	Thomas Short Elizabeth Frodsham	Thomas Short Elizabeth Frodsham 💍 1866/5020	Widower Spinster	Draper	47 21	Grey St. Auckland Auckland	13 yrs 1 yr	The dwelling house N. 73 Wakefeld Street Newton	211		15 October 1866	Wm. Hamer

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).