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 217

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 1882

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
522	24 December 1882	Wallace John Massey Sarah Devlin	Wallace John Massey Sarah Develin 💍 1882/2753	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer Domestic	27 23	Ponsonby Ponsonby	12 years 17 years	Dwelling house of Wallace John Massey	83/595		27 December 1882	Revd S. A. Bram Baptist
523	28 December 1882	Henry Amelia Muriels Ann Burns	Henry Amelius Merrick Ann Burns 💍 1882/2677	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	26 18	Muddy Creek Onehunga	26 years 18 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages Auckland	83/2641	Peter Burns Father	28 December 1882	J. Owen Lord Dep. Reg.
524	28 December 1882	James Stanhouse Elizabeth Barker	James Stanhouse Elizabeth Barker 💍 1882/2678	Bachelor Widow	Master Mariner	40 43	Auckland Auckland	17 years 16 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages Auckland	83/2642		28 December 1882	J. Owen Lord Dep. Reg.
525	29 December 1882	Elisha John Shaw Henrietta Barker	Elihn John Shaw Henrietta Carter 💍 1882/2679	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	19 21	Waikomiti Auckland	19 years 7 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages Auckland	83/2643	John Shaw Father	29 December 1882	J. Owen Lord Dep. Reg.
526	29 December 1882	Robert Ernest Bortalis de Coute Augusta Scott		Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Domestic	26 18	Helenville Manurewa	20 years 18 years	Dwelling house of Rev. Geo. Bissel Monro		Manfred Scott Father	30 December 1882	J. Reed Presbyterian Church
527	29 December 1882	Thomas Alexander Sentes Annie Louisa Huff	Thomas Alexander Gentles Annie Louisa Huff 💍 1883/764	Bachelor Spinster	Miner Servant	27 20	Thames Auckland	9 years 3 days	Dwelling house of Mr. John Huff Parnell	83/1778	John Huff Father	30 December 1882	Ven Archdeacon R. Maunsell LLD Church of England
528	29 December 1882	Samuel Hodge Mary Ann Annie	Samuel Hodge Mary Ann Currie 💍 1883/140	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer Domestic	26 23	Auckland Ponsonby	8 years 6 years	St James' Church	83/1811		29 December 1882	Revd R. F. Punciman Presbyterian
529	29 December 1882	James Palmer Mary Agnes Frost	James Palmer Mary Agnes Frost 💍 1883/2465	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	22 22	Mount Eden Auckland	22 years 18 years	St Benedicts Roman Catholic Church Newton			29 December 1882	Revd C. Downey Roman Catholic

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).