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 325

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
782	29 January 1865	William Suell Fanny Lake	William Snell Fanny Lake 💍 1865/7115	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Servant	22 21	Ferry Road Christchurch	10 days 6 mos	Heathcote Church	1025		29 Jan 1865	Rev. G Cholmondely
783	25 January 1865	William Moody Jane Markham	William Moody Jane Markham 💍 1865/7112	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	27 21	Christchurch Do	7 mos 7 mos	Heathcote Church	1024		25 Jan 1865	Rev. G Cholmondely
784	27 January 1865	William Sinclair Elizabeth Wilson	William Sinclair Elizabeth Wilson 💍 1865/7118	Widower Spinster	[UNCLEAR] Servant	40 19	Ferry Road Do	7 mos 7 mos	Heathcote valley Church	1026	William Wilson, father	Feb 11 1865	Rev. G Cholmondely
785	27 January 1865	Edward Charles Sarah Wilson	Edwd Chas Mayne Read Sarah Wilson 💍 1865/7826	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	25 23	Heathcote Christchurch	1 month 15 mos	Wesleyan Chapel Lyttelton	1272		Feb 11 1865	Rev. J Brown
786	28 January 1865	Robert Cotton Mary Elizabeth Adkin	Robert Cotton Mary Elizabeth Adkin 💍 1865/7154	Bachelor Spinster	Servant Servant	22 19	Heathcote Heathcote	1 year 6 mos	St. Michaels Church	1038		Jan 28 1865	Rev. H Jacobs
787	30 January 1865	Robert Peel Cuslic Harriet Morton Pullin	Robert Peel Crosbie Harriet Morton Phillips 💍 1865/7124	Bachelor Widow	Accountant	29 26	Christchurch Ferry Road	3 years 2 years	Ferry Road Church	1028		Jan 30 1865	G Cholmondely
788	3 February 1865	Joseph Loney Kumbell Annie Grey	Joseph Louey Kimbell Annie Grey 💍 1865/7163	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker	27 19	Christchurch Christchurch	15 mos 12 mos	St. Michaels Church	1041	Prudence Grey, mother	Feb 4 1865	[UNCLEAR]
789	4 February 1865	William Hunsley Sarah Wuing	William Hemsley Sarah Winny 💍 1865/7313 William Shaw Sarah Mullins 💍 1865/5558	Bachelor Widow	[UNCLEAR] Millener	30 34	Do Christchurch	3 years 9 years	Mr Wilson House	1093		Feb 4 1865	Rev. Cannell
790	6 February 1865	Jeremiah Appleby Sarah Binns	Jeremiah Appleyard Sarah Binns 💍 1865/7082	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter House Keeper	31 30	Papanui Christchurch	1 year 3 weeks	Independent Chapel	1014		Feb 6 1865	Rev. Habens

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).