Intentions to Marry, 1883

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840395, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

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

Page 123

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1883

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
205	15 May 1883	Walter Evensen Isabella Law	Walter Evensen Isabella Lane 💍 1883/808	Bachelor Spinster	Shopman	25 19	Te Awamutu Tamanga	5 months 2 years	St Benedicts Church	83/873		15 May 1883	Revd J. C. Cowrie, Roman Catholic
206	15 May 1883	William Head Mary Sanderson	William Head Mary Saunderson 💍 1883/732	Widower Widow	Ironmonger	53 46	Auckland Auckland	20 years 11 years	Dwelling home of Mr. Tom Booth, Sheridan Street	83/822		15 May 1883	Primitive Methodist
207	17 May 1883	Frederick Thomas Bayley Mary Igor	Frederick Thomas Hayle Mary Igae 💍 1883/915	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	22 20	Mount Eden Auckland	3 years 4 years	Dwelling house of Mr. Richd. H. Martin, Parnell, Auckland	83/886	Stewart Igor, father	17 May 1883	Revd R. F. Macnicol, Presbyterian
208	18 May 1883	George Cutter Phoebe Butter	George Hunter Phoebe Cutler 💍 1883/880	Bachelor Spinster	Farm Labourer	29 20	Remuera Remuera	14 years 20 years	Dwelling house of Mr. John Butter, Remuera	83/197	John Butter, father	18 May 1883	Revd G. B. Munro, Presbyterian
209	18 May 1883	Stephen John Veale Mary Ellen Smith	Stephen John Veale Mary Ellen Smith 💍 1883/783	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Servant	20 19	Auckland Auckland	10 years 19 years	Office of the Regr. of Marriages, Auckland	83/848	S. Veale, father of groom; J. Smith, father of bride	19 May 1883	J. Owen Lord, Dep. Reg.
210	21 May 1883	George Midford Austin Ahier Anna Maria Susannah Hamley	George Midford Aubin Ahier Anna Maria Seccombe Hamley 💍 1883/897	Bachelor Spinster	Stockkeeper	26 20	Alexandra Auckland	8 years 15 years	St Pauls Church, Auckland	83/891	W. Hamley, father	21 May 1883	Revd C. M. Nelson, Church of England
211	19 May 1883	William Owens Emma Nicol		Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	38 20	Auckland Auckland	10 years 2 years	Dwelling home of Mr. George Rollerson, Pitt Street, Auckland			14 days notice

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).