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 151

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
380	24 August 1883	James Ansume Frances Charlotte Brown	James Ansenne Frances Charlotte Brown 💍 1883/1655	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	23 24	Mercury Bay Auckland	18 months 27 years	St Benedict Church	83/1434		24 August 1883	Rev. G. Downey, Roman Catholic
381	28 August 1883	John Benjamin Fauch Alice Walters	John Benjamin Fanch Alice Walters 💍 1883/1631	Bachelor Spinster	Labour	21 18	Auckland Auckland	6 years 3 years	Dwelling house of John Fauch	83/1412	Step mother	28 August 1883	Rev. R. J. Macnicoll, Presbyterian
382	28 August 1883	Joseph Dawson Martha Jane Drury	Joseph Dawson Martha Jane Emery 💍 1883/1666	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	29 23	Parnell Parnell	3 years 22 years	St Pauls Cathedral	83/1447		28 August 1883	Rev. C. M. Nelson, Church of England
383	29 August 1883	John Moore Alicia Hillier	John Moor Alice Hillier 💍 1883/1789	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	31 24	Cambridge Cambridge	3 years 6 months	Dwelling of Chr. Bailey	83/1694		29 August 1883	Rev. W. C. Oliver, Wesleyan
384	29 August 1883	Richard Eckley Annie Layman Smith	Richard Eckley Annie Layman Smith 💍 1883/1794	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	24 25	Mount Eden Morningside	19 years 25 years	Dwelling house John H. Smith	83/1698		29 August 1883	Rev. W. J. Watkin, Wesleyan
385	30 August 1883	Carl August Pagel Elizabeth Porter	Carl August Pagel Elizabeth Foster 💍 1883/1633	Bachelor Spinster	Fisherman	39 25	Port Molyneux Newton	14 years 4 months	St James Church, Wellington St	83/1714		30 August 1883	Rev. R. O. Mainon, Presbyterian
386	31 August 1883	Samuel Schofield Janet Ann Hunter	Samuel Schofield Jannet Ann Hunter 💍 1883/1717	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	22 19	Parnell Parnell	3 months 3 weeks	Wesleyan Church, Parnell	83/1809	Sarah Wood, Guardian? 14 days notice	19 September 1883	Rev. W. J. Parsons, Wesleyan

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).