Intentions to Marry, 1895 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840408, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 11 2025

1895 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 021

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 September 1895

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
334	13 September 1895	Galuema Samuel Rogers Julia Mackenzie	Hahnemann Rogers Julia Mackenzie 💍 1895/4118	Bachelor Widow	Genier	50 50	Tapu Tapu	16 years 16 years	Registrar Office, Auckland	95/2167	13 September 1895	S. H. Lyons, Registrar
335	13 September 1895	George Girdle Maclean Elizabeth Cale	George James Symons Elizabeth Hall 💍 1895/3525 George David Macartney Elizabeth Silby 💍 1895/2856 George Adamson Elizabeth Cairns 💍 1896/1511 George Briant Elizabeth Bain 💍 1895/81 George Paul Elizabeth Lang 💍 1895/3447 George Thomas Wasley Elizabeth Crosby 💍 1896/4139	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	31 25	Taranaki Auckland	6 years 6 years	House of Rev. S. E. Gillan	95/2228	13 September 1895	Rev. S. E. Gillan, Church of England
336	13 September 1895	Walter Daniel Burch Laura Nicol	Walter Daniel Burch Janet Lawson Nicol 💍 1895/915	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 29	Auckland Auckland	7 days 2 months	St. James Church, Auckland	95/2182	13 September 1895	Rev. R. S. Macnicol, Presbyterian
337	14 September 1895	Thomas Wood Ethel Kate Short	Thomas Wood Ethel Kate McIvor 💍 1895/4049	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	27 21	Auckland Auckland	12 years 6 years	Registrar Office, Auckland	95/2168	14 September 1895	S. H. Lyons, Registrar
338	14 September 1895	Frank Arthur Towsey Gertrude Alice Phillips	Frank Arthur Towsey Gertrude Alice Phillips 💍 1895/916	Bachelor Spinster	Restaurant Keeper	30 24	Auckland Auckland	2 years 2 years	House of Rev. R. S. Phillips	95/2183	14 September 1895	Rev. R. S. Macnicol, Presbyterian
339	16 September 1895	Stephen John White Mary Alice Johnston	Stephen John White Mary Alice Holt 💍 1895/887	Bachelor Spinster	Paper Ruler	25 21	Auckland Auckland	20 years 11 months	Registrar Office, Auckland	95/2169	16 September 1895	S. H. Lyons, Registrar
340	17 September 1895	Martin Matuschka Susanna Vant	Martin Matuschka Susanna Vaut 💍 1895/1741	Widower Widow	Farmer	58 37	Taranaki Avondale	16 years 3 years	Church of England, East Taranaki	95/3125	17 September 1895	Rev. M. G. Nolan, 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 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).