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 114

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 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
125	9 April 1883	Thomas Dangan Mary O'Neill	[No date of certificate or folio number - it appears this marriage was not registered]	Bachelor Spinster	Platelayer Servant	23 20	Parnell Parnell	19 years 20 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages				J. Owen Lord, Dep. Regr.
136	9 April 1883	John Francis O'Donnell Julia Power	John Francis O'Donnell Julia Power 💍 1883/909	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Duties	36 21	North Shore North Shore	6 months 3 months	St. Patrick's Church, Auckland	83/903		9 April 1883	Revd. W. Macdonald, Roman Catholic
137	9 April 1883	Patrick Maguire Emily Graham	Patrick Maguire Emily Crawshaw 💍 1883/901	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	40 20	Papakura Pakuranga	20 years 10 years	Dwelling house of Mr. Jno. Graham	83/894	John Graham, Father	9 April 1883	Revd. Thos. Farley, Church of England
138	9 April 1883	Christopher Abernethy Georgina Elizabeth Short	Christopher Abernethy Georgina Elizabeth Shortland 💍 1883/980	Bachelor Spinster	Minister	37 24	Auckland Auckland	5 days 24 years	Wesleyan Church, Pitt Street	83/929		9 April 1883	Revd. Alex. Reid, Wesleyan
139	9 April 1883	Joseph Gallagher Sophia Elizabeth Dowling	Joseph Gallagher Sophia Elizabeth Downing 💍 1883/739	Bachelor Spinster	Commission Agent Domestic Duties	28 25	Auckland Auckland	28 years 2 years	Office of the Regr. of Marriages	83/828		9 April 1883	J. Owen Lord, Dep. Regr.
140	10 April 1883	Thomas George Sibbin Annie Matilda Lawrance	Thomas George Sibbin Annie Matheline Lawrence 💍 1883/3543	Bachelor Spinster	Printer Domestic Duties	23 24	North Shore North Shore	23 years 6 months	St. James Presbyterian Church, Wellington Street	83/849		10 April 1883	Revd. R. F. Macnicol, Presbyterian
141	10 April 1883	Henry Common Frances Kate Wetherall	[No folio number - it appears this marriage was not registered]	Bachelor Spinster	Gum Packer Servant	22 18	Auckland Auckland	22 years 14 years	St. Thomas Church, Wellington Street		Susan Wetherall, mother	10 April 1883	Revd. J. F. Davis, Church of England
142	10 April 1883	Samuel Philip Church Charlotte Heath	Samuel Phillip Church Charlotte Heath 💍 1883/3310	Widower Spinster	Carpenter Servant	31 23	Auckland Auckland	5 months 6 months	Dwelling house of Revd. F. G. Carr, Ponsonby	83/3544		11 April 1883	Revd. F. G. Carr, Wesleyan
143	10 April 1883	Charles Morris Elizabeth Jackson	Charles Morris Elizabeth Jackson 💍 1883/1018	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Servant	28 23	Newmarket Newton	25 years 10 years	St. Matthew's Church	83/943		10 April 1883	Revd. Wm. Tebbs M.A., Church of England
144	11 April 1883	Patrick Flynn Ellen Cooper	Patrick Flynn Ellen Cooper 💍 1883/361	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	26 22	Auckland Auckland	6 years 5 years	St. Patrick's Church	83/899		11 April 1883	Revd. W. Macdonald, Roman Catholic

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).