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 135

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 September 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
280	2 July 1883	Henry Hirst Ann Bailey	Henry Hirst Ann Bailey 💍 1883/2062	Widower Widow	Tanner	37 44	Mt. Roskill Road Auckland	18 years 12 years	Dwelling house of Mr. Henry Stokes	83/1454		2 July 1883	Rev. J. Macfarlane, United Free Methodist
281	2 July 1883	Thaddeus Bryant Agnes Martin	Thaddens Job Bryant Agnes Martin 💍 1883/1704	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Domestic Duties	22 20	Auckland Auckland	22 years 20 years	St. Patricks Cathedral	83/1811	Agnes Martin mother	2 July 1883	Rev. W. Macdonald, Roman Catholic
281	2 July 1883	William Pullan Marian Kibblewhite	William Pullan Marianne Kibblewhite 💍 1883/1847	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper Domestic Duties	23 25	Newton Canterbury	3 months 18 months	St. Sepulchres Church	83/1523		2 July 1883	Rev. B. J. Dudley, Church of England
282	2 July 1883	Agusto Eilam Mary Ann Hagan		Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	31 17	Auckland Auckland	3 years 10 years	St. Patricks Cathedral	83/1641	Adelia Hansen mother	2 July 1883	Rev. W. Macdonald, Roman Catholic
283	2 July 1883	Stephen Watson Elizabeth Cameron	Stephen Watson Elizabeth Cameron 💍 1883/2050	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman Servant	33 28	Northern Wairoa Remuera	7 years 1 month	Office of the Registrar of Marriages	83/1766		2 July 1883	J. Owen Lord, Dep. Regr.
284	2 July 1883	James Harvey Mary Jane McCarthy	James Harvey Mary Jane McCarthey 💍 1883/1640 James Harvey Kate Haynes 💍 1883/1009	Bachelor Spinster	Freeman House Keeper	21 22	Auckland Auckland	21 years 22 years	St. Matthews Church	83/1720		2 July 1883	Rev. W. Gibb, Church of England
285	2 July 1883	Frederick Somers Catherine Minogue	Frederick Somers Catherine Minogue 💍 1883/2048	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	24 21	Auckland Auckland	11 months 3 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages	83/1764		2 July 1883	J. Owen Lord, Dep. Regr.

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).