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 335

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
868	16 May 1865	John Bell Mary Ann Botton	John Bell Mary Ann Cotton 💍 1865/7444	Bachelor Spinster	Joiner	29 21	Christchurch Do	1 wk 8 yrs	mr Bottons House	1138	16 May 1865	Rev G Fraser
869	17 May 1865	Arthur Bomford Anne Rebecca Patrick	Arthur Bomford Anne Rebecca Patrick 💍 1865/7343	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 26	Christchurch Do	4 days 5 days	Wesleyan Church	1103	17 May 1865	Rev J Buller
870	19 May 1865	William Ward Larah Bowler	William Ward Sarah Bowler 💍 1865/7214	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	38 39	Christchurch Do	5 yrs 7 mos	St Michaels Church	1059	3 June 1865	Venb H Jacobs
871	22 May 1865	Thomas Wilson Veaycock Annie Churchill	Thomas Wilson Peacock Annie Churchill 💍 1865/7450	Widower Spinster	Confectioner Servant	35 28	Do Christchurch	4 days 4 days	Rev G Frasers house	1140	29 May 1865	Rev G Fraser
872	22 May 1865	John Hall Mary Anne Vichard	John Hall Mary Ann Picard 💍 1865/7468	Widower Spinster	Carpenter Servant	33 25	Christchurch Do	3 yrs 18 mos	Mr Halls house	1146	8 June 1865	Rev G Fraser
873	23 May 1865	Arthur Albert Fantham Mary M Williams	Arthur Albert Fantham Mary McWilliams 💍 1865/7211	Bachelor Spinster	Dairyman	23 23	Lower Lincoln Christchurch	12 yrs 12 months	St Michaels Church	1058	23 May 1865	Rev E A Lingard
874	26 May 1865	John Muller Margaret Madden	John Muller Margaret Madden 💍 1865/7588	Bachelor Spinster	Publican Servant	26 25	Christchurch Do	3 yrs 2 yrs	Roman Catholic Chapel	1190	26 May 1865	Rev - Chataigner
875	29 May 1865	James Yaxon Janet Mcfarlane	James Tyson Janet Macfarlane 💍 1865/7459 James Thomson Janet McCallum 💍 1865/8654 James Saunders Janet McHardie 💍 1866/6268	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	30 25	Christchurch Do	9 mos 15 mos	Mrs McFarlanes house	1143	29 May 1865	Rev G Fraser
876	30 May 1865	John Maffatt Ellen McKay	John Moffat Ellen McKay 💍 1865/7799	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	23 26	Christchurch Do	3 days 2 wks	Mr Scotts house	1263	30 May 1865	Rev J Gront

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).