Intentions to Marry, 1900 July-December

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840418, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, September 12 2025

1900 is bound in two volumes, January-June and July-December.

Page 558

District of Auckland Quarter ending 31 December 1900 Registrar H. Lyon

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	14 December 1900	Alfred McLean Rachel Haylock	Alfred McLean Rachel Haylock 💍 1900/5514	Bachelor Spinster	Agent	25 25	Auckland Auckland	1 year	St. Benedict's Church, Auckland	00/5569		14 December 1900	Rev. J. C. Darby, Roman Catholic
718	14 December 1900	Luke Beedell Annie Philcox	Luke Beedell Annie Nina Philcox 💍 1900/2369	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	27 22	Auckland Devonport	27 years	Church of England	00/4226		14 December 1900	Archdeacon B. T. Dudley, Church of England
719	14 December 1900	James Bleakley Alice Swindles	James Bleakley Alice Sindlen 💍 1900/4333	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber	26 23	Auckland Ponsonby	26 years 23 years	House of Father of Bride, Ponsonby	00/4807		14 December 1900	Rev. J. J. Bull, Church of Christ
720	15 December 1900	John Mathieson Marguerite Josephine Quinn	John Mathieson Marquerite Josephine Guiniven 💍 1900/5492 John Mathieson Mary Ann Frear 💍 1901/5709	Bachelor Spinster	Cook	24 21	Auckland Auckland	10 days 10 years	St. Benedict's Church, Auckland	00/5570		15 December 1900	Rev. S. H. Pillan, Roman Catholic
721	15 December 1900	Charles Goffin Clara Mary French	Charles Goffin Clara Mary French 💍 1900/2348	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	23 20	Auckland Auckland	4 years 20 years	St. Matthew's Church, Auckland	00/4170	Mother	15 December 1900	Rev. W. E. Pillan, Church of England
722	15 December 1900	Harold Lee Hannah Watters Cornish	Harold Lee Hannah Walters Cornish 💍 1901/5522	Bachelor Spinster	Harness Maker	24 24	Auckland Auckland	24 years 24 years	St. Matthew's Church, Auckland	00/4160		15 December 1900	Rev. W. E. Pillan, 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 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).