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 214

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
501	15 December 1882	Alfred James Coomb Sarah Alice Salttidan	Alfred James Loomb Sarah Alice Sattleday 💍 1882/2658	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Dressmaker	21 24	Panmure Panmure	21 years 24 years	St. Mellias' Church	82/2675		15 December 1882	Rev. E. Gulliver Church of England
502	16 December 1882	William Moyle Mary Jane Orr	William Moyle May Jane Orr 💍 1882/3458	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	26 21	Auckland Auckland	1 month 7 months	St. Matthews Church, Auckland	82/3384		16 December 1882	Rev. W. Lebts M.D. Church of England
503	16 December 1882	Louis Manson Jefferson Olivia Ellen Starte	Louis Hanson Jefferson Elvira Ellen Stark 💍 1882/2798	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	40 36	Auckland Auckland	20 years 1 year	St. Pauls Church, Princes St.	82/2693		16 December 1882	Rev. C.M. Nelson M.A. Church of England
504	18 December 1882	Henry Lockley Elizabeth H. Ferguson	Henry Lockley Elizabeth Fergusson 💍 1882/2675	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic	22 22	Ellerslie Ellerslie	3 years 12 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages, Auckland	82/2669		18 December 1882	J. Owen Lord Dep. Reg.
505	18 December 1882	John Henry Thomson Evelyn Grace Davies	John Henry Thomson Evelyn Grace Davies 💍 1882/3632	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Domestic	24 21	North Shore North Shore	4 years 20 years	Trinity Church	82/2685		18 December 1882	Rev. F.B. Evans Church of England
506	20 December 1882	John Stow Margaret Nees	John Stow Margaret Ness 💍 1882/3441	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Domestic	23 20	Auckland Avondale	15 years 16 years	Dwelling house of Mr. James Nees, Avondale	82/3403	James Nees Father	20 December 1882	Rev. P. Somerville Presbyterian of N.Z.
507	20 December 1882	John Campbell Jane Mc. Elroy	John Campbell Jane McElroy 💍 1882/2531 John Campbell Sarah McFarlane 💍 1883/630 John Campbell Isabella Nichol Anderson 💍 1882/2842 John Campbell Annie Maganagae 💍 1882/921 John Campbell Kate Emma Dusten 💍 1882/1928 John Campbell Agnes Wylie 💍 1882/1720 James Campbell Jane McWhirter 💍 1882/2167	Bachelor Spinster	Settler Domestic	49 31	Parnell Mahurangi	20 years 12 years	St. Patricks Cathedral Auckland	82/2615		20 December 1882	Rev. W. MacDonald 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).