Intentions to Marry, 1898 January-June

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840413, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 27 2025

1898 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 022

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 March 1898

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
120	10 March 1898	Thomas Fraser Margaret Reid	Thomas Fraser Margaret Reid 💍 1898/43	Bachelor Spinster	Steward Tailoress	27 27	Auckland Auckland	3 days 10 days	Registrar's Office, Auckland	98/28		10 March 1898	Thos. Culpan, Dep. Registrar
121	10 March 1898	Basil Digby Herdson Marion Downie	Basil Digby Herdon Marion Downie 💍 1898/44	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith Domestic duties	25 18	Auckland Auckland	10 years 18 years	Registrar's Office, Auckland	98/29	Margaret Downie, mother	10 March 1898	Thos. Culpan, Dep. Registrar
122	11 March 1898	John Black Sarah Ann Tippins	John Black Sarah Ann Tippins 💍 1898/45	Widower Widow	Boiler maker Domestic duties	51 40	Auckland Auckland	3 1/2 years 25 years	Registrar's Office, Auckland	98/30		11 March 1898	Thos. Culpan, Dep. Registrar
123	12 March 1898	Albert John McLean Mary Burnside Goodall	Albert John McLean Mary Burnside Goodall 💍 1898/116	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic duties	24 22	Auckland Auckland	13 years 12 years	House of Father of Bride, Ireland Street, Auckland	98/128		12 March 1898	Rev. W. A. Sinclair, Wesleyan
124	12 March 1898	Joel Stubbs Margaret Eva Lovie	Joel Stubbs Margaret Eva Lovie 💍 1898/46	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer Domestic duties	34 22	Dargaville Auckland	12 months 22 years	Registrar's Office, Auckland	98/31		12 March 1898	Thos. Culpan, Dep. Registrar
125	12 March 1898	George Smith Violet Milnes	George Smith Violet Milnes 💍 1898/71	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Tailoress	22 21	Auckland Auckland	5 months 8 months	House of Father of Bride, Rokeby Street, Auckland	98/56		12 March 1898	Rev. A. Peters, Wesleyan
126	14 March 1898	Francis John McMahon Ada May Smith	Francis John McMahon Ada May Smith 💍 1898/47	Bachelor Spinster	Railway employee Domestic duties	23 17	Auckland Auckland	7 years 4 years	Registrar's Office, Auckland	98/32	Julia Ann Smith, mother	14 March 1898	Thos. Culpan, Dep. Registrar
127	14 March 1898	John Arthur James Lily Gertrude Martin	John Arthur James Lily Gertrude Martin 💍 1898/131	Widower Spinster	Gardener Domestic duties	45 34	Auckland Auckland	2 months 1 week	Salvation Army Barracks, Albert Street	98/138		14 March 1898	Staff Capt. John Bain

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).