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 181

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 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
545	13 December 1883	Thomas Slade Amy Eddy Richard	Thomas Slade Amy Eddy Richards 💍 1883/2562	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	25 21	Hamilton Thames	4 yrs 20 years	Wesleyan Church, Pitt St	83/2664		13 December 1883	Revd W. Slade
546	14 December 1883	John Cottingham Elizabeth Henderson Sherlock	John Cottingham Elizabeth Henderson Sherlock 💍 1883/2575	Bachelor Spinster	Postman	24 21	Newton Onehunga	24 years 19 years	Presbyterian Church	83/2654		14 December 1883	Revd J. Bruce
547	14 December 1883	Frederick James Will Mary Clark Wyllie	Frederick James Wills Mary Clark Wyllie 💍 1883/2566	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 24	Mangere Papatoitoi	3 years 24 years	Dwelling of Thomas Wyllie	83/2668		14 December 1883	Revd Jno. Mackay
548	15 December 1883	William Battson Emma Horne	William Battson Emma Horne 💍 1883/2629	Bachelor Widow	Tin Smith	24 25	Auckland Auckland	6 weeks 6 weeks	Office of the Regr. of Marriages	83/2634		15 December 1883	J. Owen Lord, Regr.
549	15 December 1883	Thomas Heath Elizabeth Ballantyne	Thomas Heath Elizabeth Ballentyne 💍 1883/2534 Charles Heath Elizabeth Mahoney 💍 1883/155	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	29 26	Cambridge Papakura	8 years 12 years	Dwelling of Wm. Ballantyne, Papakura Valley	83/2611		15 December 1883	Revd Ths. Farley
550	15 December 1883	Charles Henry Pitt Annie Maria Granger	Charles Henry Pitts Annie Maria Granger 💍 1883/2809	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 20	North Shore Auckland	19 years 18 years	Dwelling house of John Granger, Onehunga	83/2705	John Granger, father	15 December 1883	Revd Ths. Farley
551	15 December 1883	Alfred John Ditten Mary Lawry	Alfred John Litten Mary Lawrie 💍 1883/3603	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher	28 26	Henderson Henderson	7 years 26 years	Dwelling house of Robt. Lawrie	83/2688		15 December 1883	Revd R. Sommerville

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).