Intentions to Marry, 1882

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840394, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, April 16 2025

Page 213

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 1882 Registrar John Muir Wayland

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
494	13 December 1882	James Edward Haliday Margaret Scott	James Edward Haliday Margaret Scott 💍 1882/2538	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic	23 24	Ellerslie Parnell	20 years 24 years	Dwelling house of Mr Scott, Brighton Road, Parnell	82/6630	13 December 1882	Alexander Carrick
495	14 December 1882	Hon. Samuel Edwin Townshend Rosa Harriett Phimley	Ernest Edwin Townshend Rosa Harriett Plumley 💍 1882/3459	Bachelor Spinster	Bootseller	24 22	Auckland Auckland	6 years 18 years	St Matthews Church, Hobson St, Auckland	82/3388	14 December 1882	Church of England
496	14 December 1882	Francis Brice Dipcombe Eliza Mackechnie	Francis Wise Lipscombe Eliza McKechnie 💍 1882/3422	Bachelor Spinster	Grazier	27 24	Ponsonby Auckland	11 years 7 years	Dwelling house of Mr H. Dipcombe, Hepburn St, Auckland	82/3404	14 December 1882	Church of England
497	14 December 1882	James Warnock Helen Mcintosh Muir	James Warnock Helen McIntosh Moir 💍 1882/2674	Bachelor Spinster	Groom Dressmaker	48 50	Kyber Pass Ponsonby	20 years 8 years	Office of Registrar of Marriages, Auckland	82/2668	14 December 1882	Dep. Reg.
498	15 December 1882	Edwin Reale Ethel Mary Reynolds	Edwin Keals Ethel Mary Reynolds 💍 1882/3551	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 20	Parnell Parnell	20 years 7 years	St Mary's Church, Parnell	82/3623	15 December 1882	Church of England
499	15 December 1882	Alexander Skinner Sara Macleod	Alexander Skinner Sara Macleod 💍 1882/125	Bachelor Spinster	Insurance Manager Manager	39 21	Parnell Wellington	8 months Wellington	St John's Presbyterian Church, Willis St, Wellington	82/3039	15 December 1882	Presbyterian
500	15 December 1882	William Hunt Ward Nicholls Addy Elvira Walker	William Hunt Ward Nicholls Addy Olivia Walker 💍 1882/2785	Bachelor Spinster	School Master	27 27	Auckland Auckland	5 years 6 years	St John's College Chapel, Waitemata	82/414	15 December 1882	Church of England

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).