Intentions to Marry, 1897 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840411, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 25 2025

1897 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 490

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 June 1897

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
232	26 April 1897	Harry Charles Barnes Elizabeth Ann Miles	Harry Charles Barnes Elizabeth Ann Miles 💍 1897/4874	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	30 24	Auckland Newton	22 years	Epiphany Church	97/1193		26 April 1897	Rev. W. E. Lush, Church of England
233	26 April 1897	Esau Chickarewa Gale Mary O'Connell		Widower Spinster	Ferryman	61 35	Tuakau Auckland	27 years 6 months	Registrar's Office	Not recorded		26 April 1897	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
234	26 April 1897	George Taylor Mitchell Rosa Elizabeth Jones	George Taylor Mitchell Rosa Elizabeth Jones 💍 1897/4765	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	21 22	Auckland Auckland	9 years	St. Sepulchre's Church	97/1170		26 April 1897	Rev. Archdeacon B. T. Dudley, Church of England
235	26 April 1897	Alfred Owen Brett Sarah Leah Robertson	Alfred Owen Brett Sarah Sash Robertson 💍 1897/1444	Bachelor Spinster	Miner	22 20	Auckland Newton Road	22 years	House of Mr. Brett	97/2509	Mr. Robertson, father	26 April 1897	Rev. E. Ward, Primitive Methodist
236	28 April 1897	Daniel Lawrence Kelly Mary Ellen McLaughlin	Daniel Lawrence Kelly Mary Ellen McLaughlin 💍 1897/546	Bachelor Spinster	Mineral Water Manufacturer	36 23	Auckland Ponsonby	15 years 15 years	Sacred Heart Church	97/1536		28 April 1897	Rev. G. H. Gillan, Roman Catholic
237	28 April 1897	Thomas Wilson Catherine McInnes	Thomas Wilson Catherine McInnes 💍 1897/4777	Widower Spinster	Tailor	53 35	Auckland Auckland	30 years	Registrar's Office	97/1131		28 April 1897	E. H. Lyons, Registrar

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).