1865 Intentions to Marry

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840377, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 323

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
763	2 January 1865	Cecil Tranter Isabella Ellen Adams	Cecil Transom Isabella Ellen Adam 💍 1865/7079	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Milliner	23 17	Christchurch Do	8 mos 1 year	Congregational Church	1013	none	2 January 1865	Rev. Habens
764	5 January 1865	William Thomas King Frances Jane Wiseman	William Thomas King South Frances Jane Wiseman 💍 1865/7145	Bachelor Spinster	Comedian do	23 18	Christchurch Do	12 weeks 12 weeks	St. Michaels Church	1035	Mary Ann Wiseman, mother	6 January 1865	Rev. H. Jacobs
765	6 January 1865	William Cole Margaret Winson	William Cole Margaret Atkinson 💍 1865/7402	Bachelor Widow	Carter House Keeper	49 38	Christchurch Do	3 days 3 days	Mr Bodles house	1122		6 January 1865	Rev. C Fraser
766	6 January 1865	Charles Nimmo Elizabeth Streeter	Charles Kimber Elizabeth Streeter 💍 1865/7787	Bachelor Spinster	farmer Servant	23 23	Lake Ellesmere Do	2 years 1 year	Winders house	1258		6 January 1865	Rev. G Grant
767	7 January 1865	James Dove Isabella Doverty	James Dow Isabella Doverty 💍 1865/7705	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 23	Christchurch Do	8 days 3 days	Registrars Office	1231		7 January 1865	Registrar
768	9 January 1865	Francis Le Manquais Clarissa Ann Webster	Francis Le Mauquais Clarissa Ann Webster 💍 1865/7157	Bachelor Widow	gold miner Servant	35 35	Christchurch Do	6 mos 17 mos	St. Michaels Church	1039		28 January 1865	Rev. H Jacobs
769	10 January 1865	John Thompson Mary Ann Hawes	John Thompson Mary Ann Haines 💍 1865/7151	Bachelor Spinster	Stonemason Servant	35 36	Christchurch Do	11 mos 5 [UNCLEAR]	St. Michaels Church	1037		10 January 1865	Rev H Jacobs
770	16 January 1865	William Allison Mary Robertson	William Allison Mary Robertson 💍 1865/7790 William Banks Jessie Robertson 💍 1865/7802	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	28 25	Christchurch Do	1 1/2 year 3 weeks	Mr McDonalds house	1259		16 January 1865	Rev. G Grant
771	16 January 1865	Henry Post Emma Leigh	Henry Rost Emma Leigh 💍 1865/7405	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Servant	30 27	Papanui L. Lincoln Rd	4 1	Mr Bearmans house	1123		16 January 1865	Rev. C Fraser

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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).