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 167

District of Quarter ending

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	14 October 1883	Joseph Rogers Anne Jane Cloutt	Joseph Rogers Anne Jane Cloult 💍 1883/2570	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	28 21	Auckland Thames	1 month 21 years	Dwelling house of Rev. J. Robertson	83/2619		14 October 1883	Rev. J. Robertson, United Methodist
462	18 October 1883	Peter Holmes Catherine McGregor	Peter Holmes Catherine McGregor 💍 1883/2500	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	32 33	Dargaville Dargaville	10 years 33 years	St. Patrick's Church	83/2516		18 October 1883	Rev. W. Macdonald, Roman Catholic
463	18 October 1883	Ferdinand Hedlund Caroline Burnett	Selina Ferdinand Hedlund Caroline Burnett 💍 1883/2550	Bachelor Spinster	Steward	25 18	Newton Newton	1½ years 12 years	Dwelling house of Mr. Jas. Burnett	83/2603	Father	18 October 1883	Presbyterian
464	22 October 1883	George William Vallack Sarah Jane Coughlan	George William Vallack Sarah Jane Caughlan 💍 1883/2544	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	26 23	Auckland Auckland	2 years 20 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages	83/2620		22 October 1883	J. Owen Lord, Dep. Registrar
465	22 October 1883	Thomas Rogers Catherine Gooding	Thomas Rogers Catherine Gooding 💍 1883/2651	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	24 25	Auckland Auckland	2 years 1 year	St. Paul's Church	83/2684		22 October 1883	Rev. C. M. Nelson, Church of England
466	22 October 1883	William Edward Eleanor Hicks	William Edwards Elenor Hicks 💍 1883/2543	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	21 21	Auckland Auckland	18 months 3 months	Office of the Reg. of Mrges	83/2619		22 October 1883	J. Owen Lord, Dep. Registrar
467	29 October 1883	Alfred Benjamin Darby Martha Elizabeth Knight		Bachelor Spinster	Pattern maker	22 24	Newton Ponsonby	6 months 4 days	Church of England			22 October 1883	C. J. Edwards, Church of England

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).