Intentions to Marry, 1899 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840416, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington (now located in the National Library reading room), September 5 2025

1899 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 518

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 1899

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
629	27 October 1899	Benjamin McKerras Lily Blanche Swift	Benjamin McKerras Lily Blanche Swift 💍 1899/5343	Bachelor Spinster	Boot Importer	28 20	Auckland City Road, Auckland	28 years 18 years	House of R.F. Macnicol, City Road, Auckland	99/5224	Legal Guardian	27 October 1899	Rev. R.F. Macnicol, Presbyterian
630	30 October 1899	John Madden Kate O'Shea	John Madden Kate O'Shea 💍 1899/4267	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	43 36	Auckland Parnell	24 years 15 years	Roman Catholic Church, Parnell	99/5452		30 October 1899	Rev. J. Folden, Roman Catholic
631	30 October 1899	Henry Dusbury Major Mary Eliza McMillan	Henry Densbury Alves Major Mary Eliza McMillan 💍 1899/4429	Bachelor Spinster	Clergyman	28 24	Auckland Auckland	3 days 24 years	St. Andrew's Church, Waitotara	99/4055		30 October 1899	Rev. T. Beatty, Church of England
632	30 October 1899	Hugh Lionel Noakes Eleanor Barns	Hugh Lionel Noakes Eleanor Barnes 💍 1899/4446	Bachelor Spinster	Battery Manager	26 28	Auckland Auckland	3 days 28 years	St. Peter's Church, Waitakere	99/4074		30 October 1899	Rev. J. Haselden, Church of England
633	30 October 1899	Alexander Walker Rose Frick	Alexander Walker Rose Frick 💍 1899/4498	Bachelor Spinster	Settler	49 22	Auckland Auckland	3 years 22 years	St. Andrew's Church, Auckland	99/4103		30 October 1899	Rev. J. Milne, Presbyterian
634	30 October 1899	James Heron Joynt Alice Goodacre	James Heron Joynt Alice Goodacre 💍 1899/4194	Bachelor Spinster	Stationer	39 35	Auckland Ponsonby	39 years 35 years	House of Father of Bride, Ponsonby	99/5186		30 October 1899	Rev. W. Ready, Wesleyan

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).