Intentions to Marry, 1874

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840386, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 158

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
5764	18 December 1874	Henry Hewin Isabel Rachel Collins	Henry Hewni Isabel Rachel Collins 💍 1874/12214	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	25 23	Auckland Auckland	3 months 13 yrs	St. Matthews Church Auckland	2169		18th December 1874	Revd R. S. Hassard
5765	18th December 1874	John Smith Bigslow Mary Ann Brown	John Smith Bigelow Mary Ann Brown 💍 1874/12226	Bachelor Spinster	Shipwright	23 19	Dedwood Dedwood	9 yrs Some	Dwelling house of Edward Brown Race West Dedwood	2173	Edward Brown Father	18th December 1874	Revd. P. H. Cornford
5766	19 December 1874	Peter Livingston Mary Ann McMichael	Peter Livingston Margaret McMichael 💍 1874/12436	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Farm Servant	30 32	Onehunga Onehunga	3 days 1 week	Office of the Registrar of marriages Auckland	2246		19th December 1874	John M. Wayland
5767	21 December 1874	Robert Norton Sophia Dunmore	[No matching marriage registration has been located]	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Servant	30 18	Auckland Auckland	6 years 18 years	St. Andrews Church Auckland		Mary Collins Mother	21st December 1874
5768	21 December 1874	Charles Spragg Harriette Booker	Charles Spragg Harriette Bookes 💍 1875/71	Widower Widow	Machinist	55 48	Eden Terrace Newton Auckland	11 years 11 years	The dwelling house of Mrs Booker Queen Street Auckland			21st December 1874	Revd. T. F. Macmillan
5769	19 December 1874	Robert Lawrence Reed Mary Ann Anderson	[Cancelled]	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	23 26	Auckland Auckland	23 yrs 5 months	St. Patricks Cathedral Auckland
5770	21 December 1874	William Buckland Hannah Witt	William Hubbard Hannah Witt 💍 1874/13198	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Servant	28 34	Auckland Auckland	23 years 3 years	Dwelling house of William Albert Stone	2506		21st December 1874	Revd. M. F. Macmillan
5771	22nd December 1874	William Sidney Burgers Mary Ann Slater	William Sydney Burgess Mary Ann Poate 💍 1874/13201	Bachelor Spinster	Master Mariner Servant	34 26	Auckland Auckland	12 yrs 4 mos	All Saints Church	2507		22nd December 1874	Rev. E. N. Bree
5772	22nd December 1874	Daniel Connell Margaret Milhis Ronaldson	Daniel Connell Margaret Wilkie Ronaldson 💍 1874/12223	Bachelor Spinster	Wood Engraver	34 38	Shortland Street Auckland	1 week 3 days	The dwelling house of Rev P.H. Cornford Auckland	2172		22nd December 1874	Revd. P. H. Cornford

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).