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 1246

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
4499	27 December 1893	Edwin John Clendon Eleanor Calvert Carr	Edwin John Clendon Eleanor Calvert Carr 💍 1893/3545	Bachelor Spinster	Solicitor	28 25	Thames Remuera	9 years 14 years	Mission Hall	93/3856		27 December 1893	Rev. F. Gould, Church of Eng.
4500	27 December 1893	John Thomas Holland Janet Keil Caffer	John Thomas Holland Janet Neil 💍 1893/4132	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	23 18	Huntly Huntly	3 years 11 months	All Saints Church	93/4020	Arthur Keil, father	27 December 1893	Rev. H. Calder, Church of Engd.
4501	27 December 1893	Patrick McKenna Mary Ann Lee	Patrick McKenna Mary Ann Lee 💍 1893/631 Peter Horner Robinson Mary Ann Lee 💍 1893/2801		Labourer	46 43	Auckland Auckland	20 years 6 months	Registrars Office	93/3087		27 December 1893	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
4502	27 December 1893	James Hammond Bates Eliza Ann Bates	James Hammond Eliza Ann Bates 💍 1893/2991	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler	22 19	Auckland Freeman Bay, 5 Albert Street	13 years 5 months	Salvation Army Barracks	93/2996	Joseph Bates, father	27 December 1893	Staff Capt. R. Edwards, Salv. Army
4503	27 December 1893	Henry Swanston Hill Blanche Blackburn	Henry Swanston Hill Blanche Blackburn 💍 1893/2995	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler	33 25	Whangarei Auckland, 25 Franklin Road	10 years 25 years	House of Rev. E. Best	93/3052		27 December 1893	Rev. E. Best, Wesleyan
4504	27 December 1893	Joseph Roman Lucy Carleton	Joseph Roman Lucy Carleton 💍 1894/103	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	38 29	Auckland Auckland	4 years 25 years	Registrars Office	94/104		27 December 1893	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
4505	27 December 1893	William Hill Dickson Abigail Carven		Bachelor Spinster	Painter	24 24	Ellerslie Remuera	13 years 7 years	House of Rev. C. S. O'Shia	94/36		27 December 1893	Rev. C. S. O'Shia, 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).