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 334

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 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
482	24 December 1891	George Diecon Rebecca Carr	George Dixon Emmett Rebecca Carr 💍 1891/172	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 20	Opoutiki London	3 years 9 years	Meeting of Christians	91/2903		24 December 1891	F. W. Greenwood Ch. of Christ
483	24 December 1891	Walter Cemiger Jessie Connell	Walter Armiger Jessie Connell 💍 1891/2150	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	25 21	Auckland Auckland	25 years 21 years	Registrar's Office	91/2956		24 December 1891	J. Owen L. C. Regr
484	24 December 1891	Frank Barker Edeline Watt	Frank Barker Ada Jane Wratt 💍 1891/2115	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	24 23	Auckland Auckland	24 years 23 years	Dwelling of John Miller, Parnell	91/2894		24 December 1891	Rev. J. Simmons Wesleyan
485	24 December 1891	Isaac Thompson Isabella White	Isaac Thompson Isabella White 💍 1891/167	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	27 20	Auckland Eden Terrace	2 years 20 years	Dwelling of Frederick Henry Riding, White Street	91/2921	William White, Father of Bride	24 December 1891	George Aldridge Ch. of Christ
486	24 December 1891	Allan Wilson Margaret Cow	Allan Wilson Margaret Low 💍 1891/1962	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 20	Northcote Birkenhead	20 years 20 years	The Wesleyan Church, Birkenhead	91/2864		24 December 1891	Rev. Mark George Wesleyan
487	24 December 1891	Charles Roth Bridget Hedden	Charles Krohn Bridget Luddy 💍 1891/2151 Charles Robinson Bridget Glynn 💍 1891/577	Widower Spinster	Gumdigger	50 34	Mairva Auckland	4 years 5 months	Registrar's Office	91/2957		24 December 1891	J. Owen L. C. Regr
488	26 December 1891	Charles Otto Jessie Mence	Charles Otto Jessie Marie Welham 💍 1891/2006	Bachelor Spinster	Battery Hand	31 21	Thames Taranaki	3 years 9 years	Church of All Saints	91/2925		26 December 1891	Rev. M. Calder Ch. of England
489	26 December 1891	William Meredith Emma King		Bachelor Spinster	Canvasser	28 25	Eden Crescent Eden Crescent	2 years 8 months	Church of St. John the Baptist, Parnell	91/2883		26 December 1891	Rev. F. M. Menechen 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 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).