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 395

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
1262	24 December 1866	George William Burneley Eliza Bradshaw		Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	40 23	Christchurch Do	7 years 6 years	In the house of Mrs Wilson	1102		24 December 1866	Rev. Mr. Harper
1263	24 December 1866	Charles Reiver Janette Wilson	Charles Kiver Jeanette Wilson 💍 1866/7795	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	24 23	Christetchurch Do	15 years 3 years	St Johns Church	1127		24 December 1866	Rev. Bryen Hoare
1264	24 December 1866	Patrick Bailey Annie Bailey	Patrick Kelly Annie Brown 💍 1866/9019	Bachelor Widow	Laborer	26 26	Christetchurch Do	3 years 18 mnths	at the House of Rev. C. Fraser Christchurch	1053		24 December 1866	Rev. C. Fraser
1265	26 December 1866	Herbert John Mathias Lucy Knight	Herbert John Mathias Lucy Knight 💍 1866/7993	Bachelor Widow	Sheepfarmer	26 25	South bank of Waimakarin Speargrass Templeton School House	6 years 8 years	----	1245		26 December 1866	Rev. R Jackson
1266	26 December 1866	Peter Hyndman Jessie Hart	Peter Hyndman Jessie Hart 💍 1867/7615	Carpenter Bachelor Spinster Servant	Carpenter Servant	23 23	Christchurch Do	4 years 4 years	In the House of Mr. Dugald Colombo Street.	1101		26 December 1866	Rev. Mr. Grant
1267	27 December 1866	John Doak Margaret Ann Wilson	John Henry Margaret Anderson 💍 1866/7387 John Cowan Margaret Gibb Maclachlan 💍 1866/7624	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 25	Near 7 mile Peg Papanui	3 days 3 days	In the Scotch Church	1066		27 December 1866	Rev. C. Fraser
1268	29 December 1866	James O'Brien Hannal Melville	James O'Brien Hannah Melville 💍 1866/7495	Widower Spinster	Carter	38 27	Christchurch Do	10 years 2 mths	Roman Catholic Church	1074		29 December 1866	Rev. Father Chastaigner
1269	28 December 1866	Charles John Shaw Annie Matilda Baggett	Charles John Shaw Annie Matilda Baggett 💍 1867/7672	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	27 18	Leeston Christchurch	6 mths 2 years	St. Johns Church Christchurch	1131	J. D. Baggett Father Christchurch	28 December 1866	Rev. Bryen Hoare
1270	28 December 1866	Charles Fraser Elyzabeth Sutherland	Charles Fraser Elizabeth Sutherland 💍 1867/7399	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 25	Spring track Christchurch	2 mth 8 mths	at the house of Mrs Patterson Christchurch.	1038		28 December 1866	Rev. C. Fraser

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).