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 186

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
580	24 December 1883	Alexander Baker Sarah Margaret Fitzgerald	Alexander Baker Sarah Margaret Fitzgerald 💍 1883/2653	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman Spinster	28 20	Auckland Auckland	3 years 11 years	Church St John Baptist Manukau Rd	83/2689	Fitzgerald Father	27 December 1883	Very Revd H. J. Fynes VG Roman Catholic
581	24 December 1883	Hugh Bryan Susannah Biggs	Hugh Bryan Susannah Biggs 💍 1883/2637	Widower Spinster	Storeman Spinster	30 18	Parnell Parnell	30 years 18 years	Office of the Reg of Marriages Auckland	83/2644		24 December 1883	J. Owen Lord Registrar
582	28 December 1883	John James Redmond Rosa Violetta Stanfield	John James Redmond Rosa Violetta Standfield 💍 1883/2638	Widower Widow	Farmer Governess	50 28	Tauranga Newton	20 years 4 years	Office of the Reg of Marriages Auckland	83/2645		28 December 1883	J. Owen Lord Registrar
583	28 December 1883	William Dowsley Ransom Clarissa Sarah Mary Hart	Willie Sowerby Ransom Clarissa Sarah Mary Hart 💍 1884/220	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Spinster	26 28	Parnell Parnell	2 years 4 days	St Mary's Church Parnell	84/105		28 December 1883	Revd G. H. Walpole English Church
584	29 December 1883	William Henry Arnold Christina Robertson	William Henry Arnold Christina Robertson 💍 1883/2552	Bachelor Spinster	Teacher Spinster	29 22	Auckland Auckland	3 months 14 days	Office of the Reg of Marriages Auckland	83/2646		29 December 1883	J. Owen Lord Registrar
585	29 December 1883	Daniel De Cuff Catherine Foale	Daniel De Cerff Catherine Poale 💍 1884/99	Bachelor Widow	Ship Carpenter Widow	52 40	Auckland Auckland	3 months 1 month	Dwelling home of Revd G. A. Brown Vincent St.	84/139		29 December 1883	Revd G. A. Brown Baptist
586	29 December 1883	William Henry Hardy Rosa Ada Dyer	William Henry Hardy Rosa Ada Tyer 💍 1884/204	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Spinster	21 24	Auckland Auckland	7 years 2 years	Wesleyan Church Pitt Street	84/113		29 December 1883	Revd A. Reid Wesleyan

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).