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 011

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
426	4 August 1897	Matthew Enright Alice Underwood	Matthew Enright Alice Underwood 💍 1897/1500	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 22	Waiuku Auckland	30 years	Registrar's Office, Auckland	97/2567		4 August 1897	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
427	5 August 1897	John Arthur Heylton Nash Eliya Hall	John Arthur Hylton Nash Eliza Hall 💍 1897/1501	Bachelor Spinster	Chemist	36 24	Coromandel Woodville	7 Weeks 3 Weeks	Registrar's Office, Auckland	97/2568		5 August 1897	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
428	5 August 1897	John Hamilton Morrow Isabella Miller	John Hamilton Morrow Isabella Miller 💍 1897/1502	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 18	Pukekohe Pukekohe	21 years 18 years	Registrar's Office, Auckland	97/2569	Samuel Miller, Father of Bride	5 August 1897	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
429	6 August 1897	John Headrick Isabella Massey	John Headrick Isabella Massey 💍 1897/3527	Widower Spinster	Clergyman	59 31	Tauranga Mangere	2 months 31 years	House of Rev. T. F. Robertson, St Mary's Road, Ponsonby	97/3643		6 August 1897	Rev. T. F. Robertson, Presbyterian
430	7 August 1897	Thomas Castlehow Maria Hamilton	Thomas Castlehow Maria Hamilton 💍 1897/1503	Bachelor Widow	Draper	27 26	Otahuhu Otahuhu	3 months 3 months	Registrar's Office, Auckland	97/2570		7 August 1897	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
431	7 August 1897	James Roche Emily Higginson	James Roche Emily Higginson 💍 1897/76	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Employee	25 21	Te Kuiti Whata Whata	2 years 8 months	Registrar's Office, Auckland	97/2571		7 August 1897	E. H. Lyons, Registrar
432	7 August 1897	Lewis Bassiere Harris Amelia Guryne	Lewis Bassiere Harris Amelia Gwynne 💍 1897/1534	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	33 25	Huntly Auckland	16 years 25 years	Sacred Heart Church, Auckland	97/2654		7 August 1897	Rev. G. H. Gillan, Roman Catholic
433	9 August 1897	George Valletort Edgcumbe Georgina Mildred Bell	George Mellelort Edgcumbe Georgina Mildred Bell 💍 1897/3722	Bachelor Spinster	Ship Broker	29 28	Auckland Auckland	3 years 10 years	All Saints Church, Ponsonby	97/2634		9 August 1897	Rev. W. Balder, 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).