Intentions to Marry, 1864

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840376, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 267

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 March 1864

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
500	1 February 1864	William Allen Elizabeth Ford	William Allen Elizabeth Tod 💍 1864/4140	Bachelor Spinster	carpenter servant	25 23	Ch Ch Do	6 mos 6 mos	St. Andrew's Church	985	February 15 1864	Rev. C. Fraser
501	2 February 1864	Agnes Sarah Mallon		Spinster	Servant	28	Ch Ch	15 mos	St. Luke's Church	848	March 18 1864	Rev. H. Jacobs
502	5 February 1864	Charles James Duke Margaret Cairns	Charles Edward Dod Margaret Byrne 💍 1864/8820 Charles Samuel Barnes Margaret Speedy 💍 1864/8183	Bachelor Spinster	farmer Servant	24 23	Riccarton Do	12 mos 3 weeks	Ch Ch	943	Feby 5 1864	Fred. J. Butler
503	5 February 1864	James Edward Shrubsole Edward Leuro Univer		Bachelor Bachelor	Engineer Labourer	27 25	Ch Ch Riccarton	2 mos 2 years	Mr. Ingles' house	1099	Feb. 5 1864	Red. C. Bowen
504	5 February 1864	James McCarthy Catherine Elizabeth Downes		Bachelor Spinster	farmer dressmaker	24 26	Ch Ch Do	4 days 3 mos	Riccarton Church	965	Feb 5 1864	Rev. C. Frager
505	5 February 1864	James Merrin Jeannette Ascoli		Bachelor Spinster	labourer Servant	27 28	Ch Ch Do	6 weeks 3 mos	Rev. C. Fraser's house	863	Feby 5 1864	Rev. C. Fraser
506	5 February 1864	Thomas Walsh Jemima Hunter		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer teacher	25 26	Ch Ch Do	3 years 1 year	Christchurch	847	Feb. 5 1864	Rev. H. Jacobs
507	9 February 1864	Robert Smellie Margaret Kelly		Bachelor Spinster	carpenter Servant	23 23	Ch Ch Do	1 year 1 year	St. Lukes Church	915	Feb 6 1864	Rev. Chataigner
508	9 February 1864	James Crosse Sophia Grant		Bachelor Spinster	lawyer Servant	38 30	Heathcote Valley Do	1 week 1 year	Mr. Milsons house	964	Feb 9 1864	Rev. Fraser
	15 February 1864	Eliza Morrison		Spinster	Servant	26	Do	15 weeks	Ch Ch	1086	Feb. 15 1864	Rev. G. Cholmondely

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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).