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 1222

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
387	5 October 1893	William Morris Woods Rebecca Jane Spence Dunce	William Morris Woods Rebecca Jane Dunn 💍 1893/2893	Bachelor Spinster	Moulder	25 22	Auckland Auckland	25 years 22 years	House of Wm. H. Dunn	93/3012		5 October 1893	Rev. H. S. West, Presbyterian
388	6 October 1893	Robert Bycroft Emmeline Alice Froude	Robert Bycroft Emmeline Alice Froude 💍 1893/2976	Bachelor Spinster	Missionary	42 29	Paeroa Auckland	3 years 8 years	House of H. R. Froude, Seafield View	93/3002		6 October 1893	Rev. H. Lee, Wesleyan
389	10 October 1893	Richard Young Elizabeth Dougherty	Richard Young Elizabeth Dougherty 💍 1893/3007	Bachelor Spinster	Gumdigger	38 28	Helensville Helensville	1 year 1 year	Registrar's Office, Auckland	93/3063		10 October 1893	C. H. Lyon, Registrar
390	10 October 1893	William Henry Cunningham Alice Taylor	William Henry Cunningham Alice Taylor 💍 1893/3070 William Henry Lobb Jane Taylor 💍 1893/3585	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	25 24	Mt. Roskill Eden Terrace	6 years 6 years	House of Mrs. H. S. Taylor, 6 Eden Terrace	93/3035		10 October 1893	Rev. E. O. Perry, Unit. Meth.
391	10 October 1893	William Gratt Lucina Rout	William Grubb Lucina Rout 💍 1893/3728	Bachelor Widow	Baker	32 28	Auckland Auckland	9 years 28 years	St. Patrick's Cathedral	93/3955		10 October 1893	Rev. J. Hackett, Roman Cath.
392	11 October 1893	Edward Robert Piercy Adelaide Irene Barrett	Edward Robert Piercy Adelaide Irene Barrette 💍 1893/638	Bachelor Spinster	Heater Seamier	36 19	Auckland Auckland	36 years 1 year	Registrar's Office	93/3073	14 days notice	20 November 1893	C. H. Lyon, Registrar
393	13 October 1893	Charles Roas Young Amy Elizabeth Gill	Charles Ross Young Amy Elizabeth Gill 💍 1893/3562	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	27 24	Kaipara Papatoitoi	24 years 12 years	Church of England, Otahuhu	93/3852		13 October 1893	Rev. F. Gould, 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).