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 210

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
461	22 November 1882	Andrew Lotherspoon Thurburn Mary Jane Lamond	Andrew Wotherspoon Thorburn Mary Jane Lamont 💍 1882/2920	Widower Spinster	Farmer	50 30	Wade Waimui	30 years 24 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages Auckland	82/2660		23 November 1882	J. Owen Lord Dep. Reg.
462	22 November 1882	Frederick Abercrombie Annie Ulting	Frederick Abercrombie Annie Utting 💍 1882/2919	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Domestic Servant	45 30	Newton Ponsonby	15 years 10 months	Office of the Registrar of Marriages Auckland	82/2659		22 November 1882	J. Owen Lord Dep. Reg.
463	24 November 1882	Thomas Gordom Mary Camplin	Thomas Goodwin Mary Campton 💍 1882/3455 Thomas Twohey Mary Callan 💍 1882/491	Bachelor Spinster	Baker Boot Closer	21 21	Auckland Auckland	4 years 2 years	St Matthews Church Auckland	82/3384		24 November 1882	Rev. W. Lson Lebbs
464	24 November 1882	Thomas Hill Mander Fanny Star Bestick	Thomas Wills Maunder Fanny Stow Bostock 💍 1882/2662	Bachelor Spinster	Builder	30 23	Napier Auckland East Tamaki	18 months 6 months	Dwelling house of Dr Rich & Bartock East Tamaki	82/2649		24 November 1882	Rev. John Mackey M.A. Presbyterian
465	24 November 1882	Fred George Ritz Sarah Ann Saker	Fred George Kitz Sarah Ann Laker 💍 1882/2922	Bachelor Spinster	Jeweller Domestic	24 23	Late Melbourne now Auckland Late Balarat now Auckland	7 days 7 days	Office of the Registrar of Marriages Auckland	82/2662		24 November 1882	J. Owen Lord Dep. Reg.
466	24 November 1882	Charles Beauylmond Phoebe Jessie Evans	Charles Henry Osmond Phoebe Jessie Jervis 💍 1882/2751	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	23 25	Newton Newton	39 years 25 years	Holy Sepulchre Church Auckland	82/2596		27 November 1882	Rev. Geo Bates Church of England
467	24 November 1882	Benjamin Green Jane Means	Benjamin Green Jane Means 💍 1882/2921	Bachelor Spinster	Shipbuilder Servant	21 21	Parnell Onehunga	15 years 21 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages Auckland	82/2661		29 November 1882	J. Owen Lord Dep. Reg.
468	28 November 1882	Harold Holman Bichton Alice Sophia Manhall	Harold Robinson Hickton Alice Sophia Marshall 💍 1882/2532	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper Domestic	21 19	Bay of Islands Auckland Parnell	21 years 19 years	The Bishop's Chapel	82/2624	William Manhall Father	28 November 1882	The Right Rev. W. G. Cowie Bishop C. E.
469	28 November 1882	John Turner Catherine Cosgrave	John Turner Catherine Cosgrave 💍 1882/2666	Bachelor Spinster	Palmer Domestic Servant	25 23	Auckland Auckland	10 years 23 years	Church of St Benedict's Newton	82/2683		28 November 1882	Very Rev. John Downey O.S.B 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).