Intentions to Marry, 1891

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840403, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole and Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 28 2025

A few pages are missing due to focus issues.

The Archives NZ CSV index has recorded pages 765, 767 and 769 incorrectly as 795, 797 and 796.

Page 1086

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1891

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
195	5 May 1891	William Medding Margaret Sanderson	William Perry Margaret Jane Bridson 💍 1891/46 William MacKie Margaret Duncan Martin 💍 1891/1806 William Hepworth Margaret Morrison 💍 1891/3679 William James Harvey Margaret Jane Anderson 💍 1892/774 William Eddowes Margaret Fisher 💍 1891/2002 William Browne Margaret Harrigan 💍 1891/1407	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 28	Papakura Auckland	4 yrs 4 yrs	Amos Church of St Matthew	91/1016		5 May 1891	Rev. L. W. Isitt, Ch of England
196	8 May 1891	Alfred Owen Grundy Jessie Beatrice Maud Watts	Alfred Owen Grundy Jessie Beatrice Maud Watts 💍 1891/272	Bachelor Spinster	Wool Carder	21 17	Onehunga Parnell	21 yrs 6 yrs	St Andrew's Manse	91/1045	William John Watts, Father	8 May 1891	Rev. R. A. Carrier, Presbyterian
197	8 May 1891	Walter Edmund Baillie Edith Deveril	Walter Edmund Knott Edith Deveril 💍 1891/844	Bachelor Spinster	Commerger	25 27	Mt Roskill Auckland	8 yrs 8 yrs	St Sepulchres Church	91/1054		8 May 1891	Rev. W. Calder, Ch of England
198	11 May 1891	Arthur Frederick Baillie Isabel McCullough	Arthur Frederick George Whiting Sarah McCullough 💍 1891/832	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 19	Mauku Panmure	2 yrs 7 mos	Dwelling of John Whiting, Home Park, Panmure	91/1066	John McCullough, Father	11 May 1891	Rev. J. F. Robertson, Presbyterian
199	12 May 1891	William Allen Agnes Chadwick	William Aiken Agnes Blair 💍 1891/355 William Hawke Agnes Buick 💍 1891/1418 William McCabe Agnes Clark 💍 1891/324 William Wilson Agnes Pearson 💍 1891/2836	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	51 33	Papakura Onehunga	3 yrs 2 yrs	Roman Catholic (see letter attached), Church Onehunga			13 May 1891	Rev. J. Paul, R. Catholic
200	12 May 1891	George Monro Margaret Ann Donaldson	George Fraser Munroe Margaret Ann Donaldson 💍 1891/115	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	21 21	Parnell Mt Eden	21 yrs 15 yrs	Office of the Registrar	91/1086		12 May 1891	J. Owen Lord, Regr
201	12 May 1891	William Greenwood Maria Laver	William Greenwood Maria Laver 💍 1891/116	Widower Spinster	Farmer	43 34	Epsom Epsom	43 yrs 6 yrs	Registrar's Office Auckland	91/1087		12 May 1891	J. Owen Lord, Regr
202	13 May 1891	William Rainbow Annie Elizabeth Burchell	William Rainbow Annie Elizabeth Burchell 💍 1891/828	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	25 23	Surrey Hills St North Rd	1 year 23 yrs	Dwelling of William Rainbow	91/1062		13 May 1891	Rev. G. F. Leech, Cong. Minister

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).