Intentions to Marry, 1875

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840387, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 16 2025.

This register is quite fragile and some of the pages are damaged or even missing.

Page 092

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1875

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
188	14 June 1875	Philip Turner Mary Jane Campbell	Philip Turner Mary Jane Campbell 💍 1875/1094	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	21 16	Onehunga Onehunga	21 years 3 years	Dwelling house of Mr Munro	75/1216	Fanny Hart, mother	14 June 1875	Rev. Geo. Brown
189	14 June 1875	Thomas Andrews Mary Hunter	Thomas Andrews Mary Hunter 💍 1875/1400	Widower Spinster	Joiner	32 22	Auckland Auckland	2 weeks 4 days	Dwelling house of Mr Menzies, Cook St. Auckland	75/1549		14 June 1875	Rev. A. Reid
190	14 June 1875	Orlando Mazzolani Emily Haslitt	Orlando Mazzoleni Emily Haslitt 💍 1875/846	Bachelor Spinster	Stoneman Servant	29 21	Auckland Auckland	9 years 21 years	Dwelling house of Orlando Mazzolani, Pitt St. Auckland	75/958		14 June 1875	The Revd. William Tinsley
191	15 June 1875	John Eric Seager Emma Elizabeth Breeze	John Eric Seagren Emma Elizabeth Breeze 💍 1875/827	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	27 21	Auckland Newton	6 months 3 months	Dwelling house of Mrs Davis, Newton	75/963		15 June 1875	Revd. J. H. Crawford
192	16 June 1875	James Reginald Courcy Eliza Pickering	James Reginald De Courcy Eliza Pickering 💍 1875/847	Bachelor Spinster	Carver	33 24	Auckland Auckland	5 years 1 year	Dwelling house of James R. L. S. Courcy, Wakefield St.	75/959		16 June 1875	Revd. W. Tinsley
193	19 June 1875	Joseph Jordan Mary Ann Bradshaw	Joseph Jordan Mary Bradshaw 💍 1875/840	Bachelor Widow	Coachman	25 25	Wakefield St. Auckland	12 years 16 years	St. Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland	75/958		21 June 1875	R. B. Patterson
194	19 June 1875	Thomas Evans Mary Elizabeth Hayes	Thomas Evans Mary Elizabeth Hayes 💍 1875/1007	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	32 17	Auckland Auckland	3 weeks 3 months	St. Paul's Church, Auckland	75/944	Charles Hayes, Father	19 June 1875	Revd. C. M. Nelson
195	21 June 1875	Antonio Sarich Rosina Ryan	Antonio Sarieh Rosina Ryan 💍 1875/1004	Bachelor Spinster	Dressmaker Dressmaker	24 22	Auckland Auckland	1 week 4 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages	75/941		21 June 1875	J. M. May Land, Regr.

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).