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 327

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
801	20 February 1865	Charles Warren Winifred Llewellyn	Charles Warren Winifred Llewellyn Jones 💍 1865/7172	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	30 19	Ferry road Christchurch	1 year 3 days	St. Michael's Church Christchurch	1044	Mary Jones, mother	20 February 1865	Rev. W.H. Jacobs
802	21 February 1865	William Ormsby Mary Holman	William Ormandy Mary Hopkins 💍 1865/7181 William Smith Mary Bompiani 💍 1865/4658	Bachelor Spinster	dealer	29 24	Christchurch Do	2 years 1 year	St. Michael's Church	1047		21 February 1865	Rev. W.H. Jacobs
803	21 February 1865	George Johnson Ann Hayes	George Johnson Ann Hays 💍 1865/7175	Widower Spinster	Labourer Servant	24 25	Ferry Road Papanui	10 [UNCLEAR] 9 [UNCLEAR]	St. Michael's Church	1045		21 February 1865	Rev. W.H. Jacobs
804	22 February 1865	Archibald Brown Bridget Murphy	Archibald Brown Bridget Murphy 💍 1865/7178	Bachelor Spinster	Seaman	28 24	Christchurch Christchurch	10 [UNCLEAR] 2 years	St. Michael's Church	1046		22 February 1865	Rev. W.H. Jacobs
805	23 February 1865	John Smellie Janet Alexander	John Smellie Janet Alexander 💍 1865/7717	Bachelor Spinster	[UNCLEAR]	32 26	Christchurch Do	6 years 6 weeks	Registrar's Office	1235		23 February 1865	Registrar
806	23 February 1865	George Darch Emma Knight	George Duckmanton Emma Knight 💍 1865/7085	Bachelor Spinster	Wheelwright Servant	21 20	Christchurch Do	12 [UNCLEAR] 12 [UNCLEAR]	Mrs [UNCLEAR] house	1015		23 February 1865	Rev. Habens
807	24 February 1865	Michael Griffin Winifred Hynes	Mel Griffin Winifred Hynes 💍 1865/7570	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	22 22	Christchurch Do	2 [UNCLEAR] 2 [UNCLEAR]	Roman Catholic Chapel	1183		24 February 1865	Rev. Chataigner
808	25 February 1865	George Gabites Mary Ann Daggan	George Gabites Ellen Ann Duggin 💍 1865/7088	Bachelor Spinster	Draper Dressmaker	38 29	Christchurch Do	2 years 2 years	Congregational Church	1016		25 February 1865	Rev. Habens
809	27 February 1865	William Sage Savage Margaret [UNCLEAR]	William Sago Savage Margaret Hossack 💍 1865/7184	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel-keeper	24 23	Christchurch Do	19 [UNCLEAR] 19 [UNCLEAR]	St. Michael's Church Christchurch	1048

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).