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 271

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
536	19 March 1864	Walter James Restieaux Harriet Etherington	Walter James Restieaux Harriet Etherington 💍 1864/7464	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Dressmaker	22 26	Ch Ch Do	9 years 6 mos	Wesleyan Chapel	952		19 March 1864	Rev. J. Buller
537	22 March 1864	Joseph Henry Bennett Agnes Cashin	Joseph Henry Bennett Agnes Cashin 💍 1864/7386	Bachelor Spinster	Wine merchant	27 20	Ch Ch Lyttelton	3 years 3 days	Queens Hotel Lyttelton	925/1123		22 March 1864	Revs. Chataigner & J. Knowles
538	22 March 1864	Frederick William Thiel Henrietta Grave	Frederick William Thiel Henrietta Grove 💍 1864/4974	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	31 22	Ch Ch Do	1 year 3 days	St. Michaels Church	865		22 March 1864	Rev. H. Jacobs
539	22 March 1864	Joseph Cray Elizabeth Wells	Joseph Cray Elizabeth Wills 💍 1864/7170	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Servant	27 26	Riccarton Do	4 days 6 weeks	Riccarton Church	1100		22 March 1864	Rev. C. Bowen
540	23 March 1864	Malcolm Ferguson Elizabeth McQuin	Malcolm Ferguson Elizabeth McQueen 💍 1864/7245	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman Servant	26 25	Prebbleton Do	2 years 6 mos	Scotch CHurch, Chch	989		23 March 1864	Rev. C. Fraser
541	23 March 1864	John Henry Niemann Harriet Unwin	John Henry Niemann Harriett Unwin 💍 1864/7562	Bachelor Spinster	Tinsmith	21 17	Ch Ch Do	16 mos 2 years	St. Michael Church	867	Samuel Unwin, father. Chch	23 March 1864	Rev. H. Jacobs
542	24 March 1864	Henry Atkinson Deborah Tweedy	Henry Atkinson Deborah Tweedy 💍 1864/7476	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Minister	22 22	Ch Ch Windmill Rd	4 years 4 years	Mr. Tweedys house	956		12 April 1864	Rev. J. Buller
543	26 March 1864	Charles Elliott Frances Amelia Austin	Charles Elliott Frances Amelia Austin 💍 1864/7102	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	32 22	Heathcote Valley Do	2 mos 2 mos	Heathcote Valley Church	1072		March 1864	Rev. J. Cholmondely
544	29 March 1864	Thomas Malony Phoebe Ascot	Thomas Maloney Phoebe Ascot 💍 1864/7257	Bachelor Spinster	Groom Servant	27 21	Riccarton Ch Ch	2 years 2 years	St. Andrews Church	993		29 March 1864	Rev. C. Fraser

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).