Intentions to Marry, 1873

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840385, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 4 2024

Page 153

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 1873

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
5244	28 October 1873	Makin Cole	John Makin Emma Cole 💍 1873/10582							73/1964		28 October 1873	Revd. D. Maunsell
5293	3 October 1873	Arthur David Stratford Mary Rice	Arthur David Stratford Mary Rice 💍 1873/8254	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	28 34	Whau Auckland Whau Auckland	13 years 4 years	St. Sepulchre Church	73/1167		3 October 1873	Revd B. T. Dudley
5332	13 November 1873	Thomas George Lodge Eliza Ann Mathers Trimmer	Thomas George Lodge Eliza Ann Martha Trimmer 💍 1873/8257	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	20 19	Newton Grey Street Auckland	20 years 7 years	St. Sepulchre Church, Auckland	73/1168	Henry Trimmer and Charlotte Rice Riley, Father and Mother	24 November 1873	Revd B. T. Dudley
5342	27 November 1873	Alfred Thomas Patterson Elizabeth Crowe	Alfred Thomas Patterson Elizabeth Crowe 💍 1873/8266	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	33 21	Devonport Auckland Auckland	12 years 16 years	St. Sepulchre Church, Auckland	73/1171		3 December 1873
5348	3 December 1873	Eric Charles Gold Smith Marian Kensington	Eric Charles Goldsmith Marian Kensington 💍 1873/8260	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	25 24	usually at Tauranga Auckland	3 days 1 month	St. Sepulchre Church, Auckland	73/1169		3 December 1873	Revd B. J. Dudley
5349	3 December 1873	Charles Smith Mary Crawley	Charles Smith Mary Crowley 💍 1873/8242	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	21 16	Edward Street Auckland Edward Street Auckland	7 moss 8 years	The dwelling house of Mrs. Cook, Edward Street Auckland	73/1163	Mary Cook, Mother	3 December 1873	Revd R. S. Cornford
5372	31 December 1873	Adam Moore Catherine Lynch	Adam Moore Catherine Lynch 💍 1874/6064	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker Servant	21 22	Chapel Street Auckland Parnell	18 years 7 years	St. John The Baptist Church, Parnell	74/62		31 December 1873	Revd H. J. Fynes

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).