Intentions to Marry, 1894

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840406, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 6 2025

Page 436

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1894

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
238	29 May 1894	William George Robson Eliza Jane Brown	George William Robson Eliza Jane Brown 💍 1894/1124	Widower Spinster	Steward	56 23	Auckland Auckland	30 years 6 months	House of Rev. C. Keane	94/1158		29 May 1894	Rev. F. W. Greenwood, Church of Christ
239	30 May 1894	John Dawes Frances Julia Allen	John Dawes Frances Julia Allan 💍 1894/1089	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	23 17	Auckland Auckland	about 6 months 17 years	Registrar's Office	94/1099	Daniel Allen, father	30 May 1894	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
240	30 May 1894	John E. Clay Margaret Ann Little	John McClay Margaret Ann Little 💍 1894/1088	Bachelor Widow	Engineer	47 47	Auckland Auckland	4 years 2 years	Registrar's Office	94/1098		30 May 1894	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
241	30 May 1894	John Sturgeon Catherine Waugh	John Sturgeon Catherine Waugh 💍 1894/1090	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	47 22	Paparata Paparata	30 years 22 years	Registrar's Office	94/1100		30 May 1894	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
242	31 May 1894	Frederick James Moslem Rachel Jessie March	Frederick James Moselen Rachel Kessiah March 💍 1894/1998	Bachelor Spinster	Tram Driver	21 20	Auckland Auckland	21 years 19 years	House of Mrs. J. March, Grey Street	94/2112	Mrs. J. March, mother	31 May 1894	Rev. J. Blaikie, Baptist
243	31 May 1894	Enoch Burden Frances Witham	Enoch Burden Frances Witham 💍 1894/1233	Widower Widow	Tailor	60 44	Onehunga Onehunga	20 years 20 years	St. John's College	94/1166		31 May 1894	Rev. P. S. Smallfield, Church of England
244	1 June 1894	Hugh Saunders Mary Robison Anderson	Hugh Saunders Robison Mary Anderson 💍 1894/1075	Bachelor Spinster	Bank Clerk	32 27	Auckland Auckland	3 years 27 years	Bishop's Chapel	94/1109		1 June 1894	Right Rev. Bishop Cowie, Church of England

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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).