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 1244

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
485	19 December 1893	William John Plate Elizabeth Catherine Mither	William John Cartwright Elizabeth Catherine Wither 💍 1894/129 William John Perrow Elizabeth Annie Bauer 💍 1893/565 William Mills Elizabeth Catherine Gardiner 💍 1894/729 William John Taylor Elizabeth Caroline Selwood 💍 1893/3349 William Henry Winter Mary Elizabeth Catherine Weavers 💍 1893/3393 William John Tiddy Elizabeth Phillip 💍 1894/958	Bachelor Spinster	Layer	27 22	Waikomite Waikomite	11 years 3 months	House of Rev. J. Mither	94/4	19 December 1893	Rev. L. O. Perry, United Meth.
486	19 December 1893	George Symons Bridge Sarah Jacobs	George Symons Budge Sarah Jacobs 💍 1893/629	Widower Widow	Settler	51 47	Parnell Auckland	5 years 4 years	Registrar's Office	93/3086	19 December 1893	E. H. Lyon, Registrar
487	20 December 1893	Nelson Harold Heath Mary Ann Hall	Nelson Harold Heath Mary Ann Hull 💍 1893/3012	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	30 30	Rangitikei Auckland	16 months 10 days	House of Rev. W. S. Potter, Franklin Rd.	93/3047	20 December 1893	Rev. W. S. Potter, Prim. Meth.
488	20 December 1893	James Edward Nelson Mary Ann Maguire	James Edward Nelson Mary Ann Maguire 💍 1893/700	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	24 21	Aratapu Eden Terrace	1 year 21 years	St. Benedict's Church	93/3975	20 December 1893	Rev. J. C. Bowring, Roman Cath.
489	20 December 1893	Edward Percival Shortt Louise Emily Shortt	Edward Perreau Louise Emily Shortt 💍 1892/3823 Edward Perrean Louise Emily Shortt 💍 1894/299	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 21	Auckland Foxton	2 years 15 months	St. Sepulchre's Church	94/92	20 December 1893	Rev. Archd. B. S. Dudley, Church of Eng.
490	21 December 1893	John William Dadson Maria Emma Walker	John William Dadson Maria Emma Walker 💍 1894/311	Widower Spinster	H. M. Customs	36 30	Newton Newton	2 years 30 years	House of Rev. E. Best, Howe Street, Newton	94/80	21 December 1893	Rev. E. Best, Wesleyan
491	21 December 1893	Robert Archibald Sinclair Fanny Grace Littlejohn	Robert Archibald Sinclair Fanny Grace Littlejohn 💍 1893/3010	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	27 24	Auckland Parnell	27 years 10 years	St. Mary's Church, Parnell	93/3045	21 December 1893	Rev. G. MacMurray, Church of Eng.

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).