1857 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840369, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 13 2024

Page 115

District of Christchurch Quarter ending June 30 1858

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
1	April 17 1858	Thomas Weaver Caroline Matilda Dale	Thomas Weavers Caroline Matilda Dale 💍 1858/1642	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	25 21	Christchurch Do	2 1/2 years 1 year	Papanui Church	May 4	Rev. I. Bradley
2	April 17 1858	Ambrose Cant Esther Marshall	Ambrose Cant Esther Marshall 💍 1858/1639	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 19	Christchurch Ferry Road	3 years 6 years	Parish Church	May 4	Rev. I. Bradley
3	April 17 1858	Clement William Decure Sese Cole	Clement William Denne Jessie Cole 💍 1858/1657	Bachelor Spinster	Stockowner	29 19	Lincoln, Riccarton Woodpark, Selwyn	6 years 1 year	Rev. C. Frasers House, Christchurch	April 17	Rev. C. Frazer
4	April 27 1858	John Smith Jane Grey	John Smith Jane Gray 💍 1858/1654	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic [UNCLEAR]	27 17	Riccarton Do	2 years 1 year	Rev. C. Frazer House	April 27	Rev. C. Frazer
5	May 4 1858	James Reeves Maria [UNCLEAR]	James Reeves Maria Munn 💍 1858/1735	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic [UNCLEAR]	25 18	Christchurch Do	4 years 7 years	Avonside Church	May 4	Rev. C. Mackie
6	May 7 1858	Alexander Dallas Mary Emma Ridley	Alexander Dallas Mary Emma Ridley 💍 1858/1684	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	27 27	Christchurch Riccarton	10 weeks 3 weeks	Riccarton Church	May 21	Rev. C. Bowen
7	May 8 1858	John Weaver Susanna Jones	John Weavers Susannah Jones 💍 1858/1660	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic [UNCLEAR]	21 25	Christchurch Do	3 years 2 1/2 years	Scotch Church, Christchurch	May 8	Rev. C. Frazer
8	May 20 1858	Michael Downey Fanny [UNCLEAR]	Michael Downey Fanny Dobbs 💍 1858/1768	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Domestic [UNCLEAR]	34 23	Lower Lincoln Road Heathcote	3 years 3 years	Wesleyan Church	June 4	Rev. I. [UNCLEAR]
9	May 24 1858	William Le Fleming Mary Wilson	William Le Fleming Mary Wilson 💍 1858/1663	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	20 20	Christchurch St Albans	3 years 5 years	Parish Church	May 24	Rev. W. Willock
10	May 25 1858	George Tomlinson Charlotte Dobbs	[No matching marriage registration has been located]	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	28 20	Christchurch Riccarton	2 years 3 years	Riccarton Church	May 25	Rev. C. Bowen
11	June 12 1858	William Moniss Elizabeth Stokes	William Morriss Elizabeth Stokes 💍 1858/1666	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 21	Riccarton Papanui	1 week 3 years	Parish Church	June 12	Rev. W. Willock
12	June 18 1858	Henry Green Fanny Wayland	Henry Green Fanny Wayland 💍 1858/1687	Bachelor Spinster	Coachman	22 23	Christchurch Riccarton	3 years 1 1/2 years	Riccarton Church	June 18	Rev. O. Mathias

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).