Intentions to Marry, 1890

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840402, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 23 2025

Page 1231

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 1890 Registrar John Owen Lord

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
468	8 December 1890	Richard Thompson Mary Jane O'Sullivan	Richard Thompson Mary Hough 💍 1890/2897	Bachelor Spinster	Fireman	26 22	Chelsea Eden Terrace	5 yrs 9 yrs	Dwelling of John [illegible]	90/2939		8 December 1890	Rev. P. O. Cade, Baptist
469	9 December 1890	Alfred Lovell Alice Susan Broadbent		Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	31 24	Auckland Auckland	31 yrs 24 yrs	Dwelling of Edward [illegible]	90/2876		9 December 1890	Rev. P. A. Reid, Wesleyan
470	9 December 1890	Samuel Simson Clara Watson	Samuel Johnson Clara Wodson 💍 1890/2913	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 25	Auckland Invercargill	1 month 4 yrs	Registrar's Office	90/2963		9 December 1890	J. Owen Lord, Regr
471	9 December 1890	Charles Curtis Isabella McCamish	Charles Curtis Isabella McCamish 💍 1890/1540	Bachelor Spinster	Fumdigger	24 17	Riverhead Newton	5 mos 14 yrs	Registrar's Office	90/2964	Elizabeth Sarah Lynch, Mother	9 December 1890	J. Owen Lord, Regr
472	10 December 1890	William Corquodale Mary Rivers Edson	William McCorgwodale Mary Viner Edson 💍 1890/2823	Bachelor Spinster	Miller	25 26	North Shore North Shore	8 mos 10 yrs	Dwelling of John Edson, Cheltenham	90/2916		10 December 1890	Rev. J. Dukes, Wesleyan
473	10 December 1890	Frank Irving Mary Elizabeth Ann [illegible]		Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	25 20	Eden Terrace Ponsonby	25 yrs 20 yrs	Church of [illegible]	90/2871	[illegible] Father	10 December 1890	J. P. [illegible]
474	10 December 1890	Donald Neil McMillan Annie Endres	Donald Neil McMillan Annie Endres 💍 1890/1550	Bachelor Widow	Fumdigger	27 34	St. Barrier St. Barrier	5 yrs 4 yrs	Registrar's Office	90/2965		10 December 1890	J. Owen Lord, Regr
475	11 December 1890	Frederick Fairweather Margaret Murphy	Frederick Fairweather Margaret Murphy 💍 1890/3800	Bachelor Spinster	Lime Burner	27 24	Arch Hill Arch Hill	3 yrs 4 yrs	Church of St. Benedict	90/2854		11 December 1890	Rev. F. C. Downey, R. Catholic

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).