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 180

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
538	10 December 1883	William Mincher Lodora Harry	William Mincher Todora Harvey 💍 1883/2628	Bachelor Spinster	Iron roller	22 21	Auckland Auckland	4 years 8 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages	83/2636		10 December 1883	J. Owen Lord Registrar
539	11 December 1883	James Blyth Pricilla Churches	James Blyth Priscilla Churches 💍 1883/2650	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	35 25	Ellerslie West Tamaki	11 years 25 years	Church of England Church	83/2683		11 December 1883	Revd H. Gould Church of England
540	11 December 1883	Charles Frederick Cooper Eliza Catherine Craig	Charles Frederick Cooper Eliza Catherine Craig 💍 1883/2667	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler	34 26	Auckland Auckland	18 years 26 years	St Sepulchres Church	83/2679		11 December 1883	Revd B. T. Dudley Church of England
541	11 December 1883	Robert Badger Anna Hanson	Robert Badger Anna Hanson 💍 1883/2531	Bachelor Spinster	Stockkeeper	29 25	Newton Road Mt Eden	8 years 25 years	Dwelling house of James Hanson	83/2607		11 December 1883	Revd J. McK. Fraser Presbyterian
542	11 December 1883	Angus Finlayson Margaret Rowland	Angus Finlayson Margaret Rowland 💍 1883/2670	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 17	Waipu Waipu	24 years 8 years	St Matthews Church	83/2710	Christina Rowland, Mother	11 December 1883	Revd Wm Tebbs Church England
543	13 December 1883	James Turey Ann Lynch	James Furey Ann Lynch 💍 1883/2494	Bachelor Spinster	Builder	40 26	Auckland Auckland	14 years 5 years	St Benedicts Church	83/2593		13 December 1883	Very Revd J. C. Downey Roman Catholic
544	13 December 1883	Henry Bruce Beatrice Helen Cockfield	Henry Bruce McIntyre Beatrice Helen Cockfield 💍 1883/2671	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	21 18	Parnell Auckland	21 years 18 years	St Matthews Church	83/2711	Mr Cockfield, Father	14 December 1883	Revd Wm Tebbs Church 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).