Intentions to Marry, 1898 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840414, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, June 27 2025

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

Page 492

District of AUCKLAND Quarter ending 31 December 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
717	22 December 1898	George Robert Bannerman Elsie Rebecca Harrison	George Robert Bannerman Elsie Rebecca Harrison 💍 1898/4186	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	25 17	Auckland Auckland	18 years 16 years	Registrar's Office, Auckland	98/3785	Esther Harrison, mother	22 December 1898	L. Bulpan, Deputy Registrar
718	22 December 1898	Charles Woods Laura Margaret Elizabeth Lyes	Charles Woods Laura Margaret Elizabeth Lyes 💍 1898/5135	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	28 18	Coromandel Coromandel	3 years 9 months	House of Mr. G. Mirfin, Canada Street, Newton	98/4921	Albert Lyes, father	22 December 1898	Rev. R. Scott West, Presbyterian
719	22 December 1898	Walter George Cummins Margaret Storey	Walter George Cummins Margaret Storey 💍 1899/317	Bachelor Spinster	Sailor Sailoress	31 33	Auckland Auckland	31 years 33 years	St. Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland	99/73		22 December 1898	Rev. W. Croke, Roman Catholic
720	22 December 1898	Thomas Carle Lindsay Cecilia Mary Lee Ryan		Bachelor Spinster	Auctioneer	29 23	Napier Auckland	3 days 2 weeks	St. Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland			22 December 1898	Rev. W. Croke, Roman Catholic
721	23 December 1898	Samuel Edgar Fordyce Bertha Hoyes	Samuel Edgar Fordyce Bertha Hoyes 💍 1898/4250	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	29 26	Rotorua Auckland	4 years 26 years	Presbyterian Church, Devonport	98/3802		23 December 1898	Rev. R. Ferguson, Presbyterian
722	23 December 1898	Alfred Ernest Gifford Mary Jane Courtney		Bachelor Spinster	Sailor	27 24	Auckland Auckland	27 years 24 years	St. Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland			23 December 1898	Rev. J. G. Dawson, Roman Catholic
723	28 December 1898	William Charles Ricketts Julia Richards	William Charles Ricketts Julia Richards 💍 1898/2856	Widower Spinster	Commercial Traveller	47 29	Auckland Auckland	20 years 12 years	St. Benedict's Church, Auckland	98/4930		28 December 1898	Very Rev. D. O. Egan, Roman Catholic

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).