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 1223

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
394	16 October 1893	Peter Hansen Matilda Cammell	Peter Hansen Matilda Cammell 💍 1893/3013	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	29 21	Auckland Ponsonby	20 years 21 years	House of S. G. Cammell, Popet Street	93/3048		16 October 1893	Rev. J. Law, Wesleyan
395	16 October 1893	Ernest Robert Webb Catherine Jane Beale	Ernest Robert Webb Catherine Jane Beale 💍 1893/2971	Bachelor Spinster	Surveyor	34 22	Rotorua Ponsonby	2 years 6 years	St. Mark's Church, Remuera	93/2997		16 October 1893	Rev. W. Calder, Ch. of England
396	17 October 1893	John Edward Walker Lucy Elizabeth Matilda Woods	John Edward Walker Lucy Elizabeth Matilda Wood 💍 1893/2972	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Porter	22 23	Epsom Epsom	22 years 23 years	St. Mark's Church, Remuera	93/2998		17 October 1893	Rev. J. Richards, Ch. of England
397	17 October 1893	Charles John Cullen Mary Cuthbert Gerrand	Charles John Cullen Mary Cuthbert Gerrand 💍 1893/3073	Bachelor Spinster	Optician	33 17	Auckland Auckland	3 months 12 years	Congregational Church, Beresford St	93/3037	Agnes Gerrand, mother	17 October 1893	Rev. G. Burgess, Congl. Indep.
398	18 October 1893	Joseph Jones Emily Sarah Mitchell	Joseph Jones Emily Sarah Mitchell 💍 1893/2996	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	27 23	Arch Hill Mt. Eden	16 years 3 years	House of S. C. Mitchell, Mt. Eden	93/3053		18 October 1893	Rev. G. S. Cox, Baptist
399	18 October 1893	Daniel Richard Salmon Anna Wright	Daniel Richard Salmon Anna Anniss Wright 💍 1893/3820	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	28 27	Auckland Auckland	7 years 14 years	St. Matthew's Church, Auckland	93/4110		18 October 1893	Rev. J. Marshall, Ch. of England
400	19 October 1893	Henry Johnston Sullivan Mary Ann Sullivan	Henry Johnston Mary Ann Bullevant 💍 1893/2894	Bachelor Spinster	Boot Manufacturer	29 30	Auckland Auckland	6 years 8 years	House of S. Sullivan, John Street, Mt. Eden	93/3013		19 October 1893	Rev. R. S. West, Presbyterian

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).