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 339

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
898	3 July 1865	Anthony Ashton Emma Yeomans	Anthony Ashton Emma Yeomans 💍 1865/7352	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	28 17	Ferry Road Do	3 days 1 month	Wesleyan Chapel	1106	Edward Yeomans, father	3 July 1865	Rev J Buller
899	4 July 1865	Edward Samuels Emily Lorey	Edward Samuels Emily Carey 💍 1865/7480	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Dressmaker	23 19	Do Christchurch	3 yrs 2 yrs	Scotch Church	1150	Thomas Lorey, father	5 July 1865	Rev C Fraser
900	14 July 1865	William Banks Jefree Robertson	William Banks Jessie Robertson 💍 1865/7802 William Allison Mary Robertson 💍 1865/7790	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter Domestic Servant	23 27	Christchurch Do	3 yrs 5 yrs	At the Private residence of the Rev Chas Fraser	1264		14 July 1865	Rev Chas Fraser
901	17 July 1865	Michael Brannan Hart Margaret Woods	Michael Brannon Hart Margaret Woods 💍 1865/7853	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	21 19	Christchurch	14 yrs 2 yrs	Harts residence on the Papanui Rd	1281		17 July 1865	Rev - [UNCLEAR]
902	19 July 1865	John Bottomley Konley Mary Rose Mathias	John Cotton Rowley Mary Rose Mathias 💍 1865/7238	Bachelor Spinster	Stockowner	24 18	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 14 yrs	St Michaels Parish Church	1067	Harriet Mather, Mother	19 July 1865	Ven Archdeacon Jacobs
903	20 July 1865	John Hobbs Mary Ann Hall Jones	John Hobbs Mary Ann Jones 💍 1865/7483	Widower Widow	farmer	37 33	Lincoln Road Christchurch Lincoln Rd	2 mos 6 yrs	House of W Hobbs	1157		20 July 1865	Rev C Fraser
904	21 July 1865	James Charlesworth Elizabeth Ryan	James Charlesworth Elizabeth Rynn 💍 1865/7486	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic servant	22 22	Ferry Road Christchurch	14 mos 15 mos	St Andrews Church	1152		21 July 1865	Rev Chas Fraser
905	26 July 1865	William Henry Hayes Emily Butter	William Henry Hayes Emily Butler 💍 1865/6536	Widower Spinster	Captain	32 21	Christchurch Do	2 mos 2 mos	Royal Hotel	1153		26 July 1865	Rev C Fraser
906	28 July 1865	Peter Davis Sarah Buckett		Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Servant	29 19	Christchurch Do	4 mos 6 mos	St Michaels		Henry Buckett, father	28 July 1865

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).