Intentions to Marry, 1897 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840412, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 25 2025

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

Page 003

District of Auckland Quarter ending 30 September 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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
361	1 July 1897	Thomas Cronin Gunda Christina Anderson	Thomas Cronin Gunda Christina Andersen 💍 1897/1510	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	26 21	Auckland Kaipara	25 years 21 years	Registrars Office, Auckland	97/2556	1 July 1897	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
362	2 July 1897	Heiram Nixon Harriet Hill	Hiram Nixon Harriet Hill 💍 1897/1544	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	31 21	Auckland Auckland	30 years 21 years	House of Mother of Bride, Cook Street, Auckland	97/2673	2 July 1897	Rev. C. E. Ward, Primitive Methodist
363	2 July 1897	Claude Colebrook Eveline Minett Knight	Claude Colebrook Eveline Minett Knight 💍 1897/2375	Bachelor Spinster	H. M. Customs	33 29	Auckland Auckland	9 years 12 years	House of Father of Bride, Mount Albert	97/3645	2 July 1897	Rev. J. Clarke, Wesleyan
364	2 July 1897	George Milnes Eva May Moore	George Milnes Eva May Moore 💍 1897/1489	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	31 21	Auckland Auckland	1 year 1 year	Registrars Office, Auckland	97/2557	2 July 1897	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
365	2 July 1897	Thomas Duffus Ball Eleanor Dorothy Dudley	Thomas Duffus Ball Eleanor Dorothy Dudley 💍 1897/1550	Bachelor Spinster	Solicitor	31 25	Auckland Auckland	23 years 25 years	St. Sepulchre's Church, Auckland	97/2678	2 July 1897	Ven. Arch. B. T. Dudley, Church of England
366	2 July 1897	Trevor James Grierson Jeannie Stephenson	Trevor James Grierson Jeannie Stephenson Graham 💍 1897/1516	Bachelor Widow	Sharebroker	48 43	Auckland Auckland	1 year 4 days	House of Mrs. M. Carshel, Princes Street	97/2613	2 July 1897	Rev. C. M. Nelson, Church of England
367	3 July 1897	Donald Macaulay Agnes Bain	Donald Macaulay Agnes Bain 💍 1897/1557	Bachelor Spinster	Salvation Army Officer	25 26	Auckland Auckland	4 days 6 months	Salvation Army Barracks, Auckland	97/2662	3 July 1897	Captain J. Cleain, Salvation Army

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).