Intentions to Marry, 1888

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840400, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Alexandra at Archives NZ Wellington, May 14 2025

Page 1211

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 1888

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
394	13 October 1888	Thomas Henwood Emma Ellett	Thomas Henwood Emma Ellett 💍 1888/202	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 24	Mangere Otahuhu	2 years 20 years	Holy Trinity Church	88/2799		13 October 1888	Rev. F. Gould Ch of England
395	13 October 1888	Jeremiah Deehan Johanna Dempsey	Jeremiah Beehan Johanna Dempsey 💍 1888/2690	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	37 24	Grafton Road Newton	5 years 20 years	R. Catholic Church	88/2753		13 October 1888	Rev. E. Downey R. Catholic
399	15 October 1888	Charles Cossenor Jane Pipkins	Charles Grosvenor Hephzibah Jane Hipkins 💍 1888/2715	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	35 32	Bay of Islands Grafton Road	6 months 4 years	St Sepulchre's Church	88/2779		15 October 1888	Rev. B. T. Dudley Ch of England
400	15 October 1888	Alexander Duncan Gillies Mary Jane Brookes	Alexander Duncan Gillies Mary Jane Brookes 💍 1888/2698	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	24 21	Ponsonby Auckland	24 years 21 years	Church of the Sacred Heart	88/2786		15 October 1888	Rev. J. F. McEnihan R. Catholic
401	15 October 1888	Thomas Myllie Rebecca Jane Warren	Thomas Wyllie Rebecca Jane Warren 💍 1888/198	Bachelor Spinster	Promoter	27 20	Timaru Mt Roskill Road	2 years 20 years	Young Men's Hall	88/2818	Mary Warren Mother Jas Warren Father	15 October 1888	Rev. B. J. Thomas Wesleyan
402	15 October 1888	Charles Edward Johnson MacCormick Mabel Nichol	Charles Edward MacCormick Mabel Nichol 💍 1888/2650	Bachelor Spinster	Solicitor	26 19	Symonds Street Parnell	23 years 8 years	St Paul's Church	88/2737	Wm Nichol Father	15 October 1888	Rev. C. M. Nelson Ch of 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 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).