Intentions to Marry, 1866

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840378, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 391

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
1226	5 November 1866	John Kent Sarah Cosgrove	John Kent Sarah Cosgrove 💍 1866/7990	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	36 21	Christchurch Do	2 yrs 2 mo	Mr Tompkins's House	1244	5 November 1866	Rev. Thornton
1227	7 November 1866	Edward Regought Mary Emma Burke	Edward Lysaght Mary Emma Burke 💍 1866/7243	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	32 31	Christchurch Do	4 days 4 days	Registrar's Office	986	7 November 1866	Registrar
1228	9 November 1866	John Caves Mary Ann Therry	John Eaves Mary Ann Thereza Plunkett 💍 1866/7474 John Dyer Mary Ann Leary 💍 1866/5545 John Hair Mary Ann Higgie 💍 1866/6832 John Pike Mary Ann Willis 💍 1866/6718 John Park Mary Ann Dunne 💍 1866/4597	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	25 24	Christchurch Do	4 days 6 years	Roman Catholic Chapel	1269	9 November 1866	Rev Chataigner
1229	12 November 1866	Robert Skillinq Mary Ann Tressider	Robert Skelling Mary Ann Tressidder 💍 1866/7666	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	30 28	Malvern Hills Christchurch	9 mo 2 years	Scotch Church	1133	12 November 1866	Rev C Fraser
1230	12 November 1866	Henry Dunford Margaret Jane Botton	Henry Dunford Margaret Jane Cotton 💍 1866/7930	Bachelor Spinster	Ferryman	23 21	Rakaia Christchurch	12 years 2 years	St Luke's Church	1224	13 November 1866	Rev G Carpenter
1231	13 November 1866	Stanley Briscoe [UNCLEAR] Bessie Edith Blundell	Stanley Briscoe Seymour Bessie Edith Blundell 💍 1866/7909	Bachelor Spinster	Watchmaker	25 21	Christchurch Do	3 years 3 years	St Michael's Church	1217	13 November 1866	Rev C Bowen
1232	13 November 1866	John Viebrock Anna Meyerhof	John Viebrock Anna Meyerhoff 💍 1866/7675	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	30 25	Halswell Do	4 yrs 6 mo	Scotch Church	1135	13 November 1866	Rev C. Fraser
1233	13 November 1866	Henrich Rathgen Hedwig Meyerhof		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	30 22	Halswell Do	4 yrs 6 mo	Scotch Church	1137	13 November 1866	Rev C. Fraser
1234	13 November 1866	George Taylor Clarke Marian Herbert Green	George Taylor Clarke Marian Herbert Greer 💍 1866/7786	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Servant	26 25	Christchurch Do	5 days 4 mo	St John's Church	1274	13 November 1866	Rev J O'B Hoare

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).