Intentions to Marry, 1893

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840405, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole and Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 6 2025.

A few pages are missing due to focus issues.

Page 829

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 September 1893

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
310	27 July 1893	William Henry Cantell Annie Rose Read	William Henry Cantell Annie Rose McLeod 💍 1893/2052	Bachelor Spinster	Driver	21 23	Newton Kaukapakapa	3 wks 15 yrs	Registrar Office Auckland	93/2087	27 July 1893	E. H. Lyons Registrar
311	31 July 1893	William Isaac Stemson Rose Ann McIhone	William Isaac Stemson Rose Ann McIlhone 💍 1893/2058	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet maker	26 22	Auckland Auckland	10 yrs 9 yrs	Registrar Office Auckland	93/2088	31 July 1893	S. H. Lyons Registrar
312	31 July 1893	Alexander Farquhar Williamson Isabella Dodds	Alexander Farquhar Williamson Isabella Dodds 💍 1893/608	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	26 23	Auckland Eden Terrace	13 yrs 23 yrs	House of Rev. J. Dodds	93/2132	31 July 1893	Rev. J. Blaikie Baptist
313	31 July 1893	John Le Couteur Buckland Frances Waller		Widower Spinster	Farmer	43 39	Cambridge Epsom	1 yr 29 yrs	House of Rev. R. S. West	93/2127	31 July 1893	Rev. R. S. West Presbyterian
314	1 August 1893	Alfred James Loomb Annie Alice Durbridge Pearce	Alfred James Loomb Annie Alice Dunbridge Pearce 💍 1893/2054	Widower Spinster	Labourer	32 26	Panmure Panmure	20 yrs 26 yrs	Church of England Panmure	93/2106	1 August 1893	Rev. L. Gould Ch. of England
315	2 August 1893	Paul Gray Douslin Minnie Ermyntrude	Paul Gray Douslin Minnie Errington 💍 1893/2059	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	31 28	Blenheim Auckland	20 yrs 3 mos	Church of England Newton	93/2089	2 August 1893	Rev. W. E. Lush Ch. of England (Note: by Rev. Lush)
316	3 August 1893	Samuel Higgins Martha Moon	Samuel Higgins Martha Moon 💍 1893/2827	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	46 43	Matamata Devonport	15 yrs 3 wks	Congregational Church	93/2599	3 August 1893	Rev. F. C. Brush Congl. Indep.

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).