Intentions to Marry, 1885

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840397, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, April 30 2025

Page 1332

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1885

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
279	21 May 1885	Samuel Loyatt Sarah Hyde	Samuel Wyatt Sarah Hyde 💍 1885/1028	Widower Widow	Farmer	49 52	Hotea North Auckland	9 years 10 years	Registrar's Office	85/984		21 May 1885	J. Owen Lord, Regr.
280	21 May 1885	George Henry Clutten Emmeline Alice Alderton	George Henry Clutten Minnie Alice Alderton 💍 1885/1825	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	30 25	Parnell Remuera	9 years 10 years	St. Mark's Church	85/981		21 May 1885	Wm. L. Pitt, Church England
281	22 May 1885	William Hastie Jane McMillan	William Hastie Jane McLennan 💍 1885/23	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	25 21	Mt. Albert Avondale	10 years 14 years	Dwelling of Rev. R. Sommerville	85/955		22 May 1885	Rev. R. Sommerville, Presbyterian
282	22 May 1885	William Donald Saxon Alice Maud de Foley	William Donald Laxon Alice Maude Foley 💍 1885/1254	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 22	East Tamaki Otahuhu	12 years 6 years	Presbyterian Church, Otara	85/1048		22 May 1885	Rev. J. Mackay, Presbyterian
283	23 May 1885	Jacintho St. Clair d'Almeida Frances Clara Cooper	Jacinth St Clare D'Almeida Frances Clara Cooper 💍 1885/1065	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	25 19	Parnell York Street	6 months 19 years	Dwelling of Wm. Cooper	85/1050	William Cooper, father	23 May 1885	Rev. R. Davis, Wesleyan
284	23 May 1885	William Bone Edith Clements	William Bone Edith Clements 💍 1885/1029	Widower Spinster	Gardener	37 24	Lake Takapuna Parnell	4 months 2 years	Registrar's Office	85/987		23 May 1885	J. Owen Lord, Regr.
285	26 May 1885	Charles Eugene Guyan Mary Ann Treer	Charles Fagan Mary Ann Freer 💍 1885/30	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	29 21	Ponsonby Newton	1 year 21 years	Prim. Meth. Church	85/939		26 May 1885	Rev. A. J. Smith, Prim. Meth.

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).