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 1342

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
223	21 April 1885	George Hyde Marian Bryan	George Leopold Hyde Marian Bryan 💍 1885/1258	Widower Spinster	Engineer	27 19	Rocky Nook Newton	10 years 19 years	Dwelling of Jeffrey Ellingham	85/1082	Thomas Bryan, father	21 April 1885	Rev. R. J. Macnicol, Wesleyan
224	21 April 1885	William Thomas Handy Eliza Ann Brashin	William Thomas Landy Eliza Anne Braslin 💍 1885/1062 William Benson Eliza Ann Brown 💍 1886/433	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	24 20	Freeman's Bay Auckland	5 years 10 years	St. Benedict's Church	85/1026	James Brashin, father	21 April 1885	Rev. A. D. Luck
225	21 April 1885	Patrick Edmund Dillon Susannah Eliza Logan	Patrick Edwin Dillon Susannah Eliza Logan 💍 1885/1257	Widower Spinster	Settler	59 31	Grafton Road Grafton Road	18 years 7 years	Dwelling of Henry Greensmith Wade	85/1081		21 April 1885	Rev. R. J. Macnicol, Wesleyan
226	21 April 1885	John McIntosh Mary Ann Robinson	John McKeown Mary Ann Austin 💍 1885/1991	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	29 17	Auckland Auckland	2 days 2 years	Office of the Reg. of Marriages				Reg.
227	22 April 1885	William Charles Strong Mary Ann Bidlake	William Charles Strong Mary Ann Bidlake 💍 1885/1052	Bachelor Widow	Storeman	24 32	Ponsonby Brown Street	24 years 5 years	Dwelling of Mary Ann Bidlake	85/1019		22 April 1885	Rev. J. Rothwell, Primitive Methodist
228	24 April 1885	Edmund Highman Page Emily Jane Woolloth	Edmond McKinnon Page Emily Jane Worthington 💍 1885/1271	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	29 24	Ponsonby Parnell	10 years 24 years	St. Mary's Church	85/1071		24 April 1885	Rev. G. H. Walpole, Church of England
229	25 April 1885	William Lang Mary Grogan	William Lang Mary Migan 💍 1885/1034	Widower Spinster	Master Mariner	39 23	Freeman's Bay Auckland	39 years 23 years	Office of the Reg. of Marriages	85/969		25 April 1885	J. Ownsford, Reg.

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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).