Intentions to Marry, 1867

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840379, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 419

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
1271	Jan 4 1867	Melly Richard Emily Double	Melly Richard Kinsman Emily Double 💍 1867/7939	Bachelor Spinster	Lawyer Servant	24 21	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	Cobham Cottage	1223		Jan 5 1867	Rev. Mr. Thornton
1272	Jan 7 1867	John Graham Susan Ford	John Graham Susan Ford 💍 1867/7900	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 23	Christchurch Christchurch	1 mth 4 years	St. Lukes Church	1210		Jan 15 1867	Rev. J. Carpenter
1273	Jan 7 1867	James Stevenson Mary McVea	James Stevenson Margaret McVie 💍 1867/7396	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 23	Christchurch Christchurch	6 mths 3 year	In The Scotch Church	1037		Jan 8 1867	Rev. C. Fraser
1274	Jan 4 1867	John Briddon Russell Julia Ann Webley	John Buddon Russell Julia Ann Webling 💍 1867/7750	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	29 23	Christchurch Christchurch	2 mths 5 mths	In the Independent Chapel	1189		Jan 14 1867	Rev. W. Habens
1275	Jan 24 1867	William Gibbs Eliza Merrin	William Thomson Eliza Green 💍 1867/5926	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	30 23	Christchurch Papanui	7 years 2 years	Avonside Church	942		Jan 24 1867	Rev. J. Raven
1276	Jan 5 1867	William Woodhouse Mary Millman	William Woodhouse Mary Mullowney 💍 1867/7252	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor Servant	25 19	Christchurch Christchurch	3 mths 2 mths	Roman Catholic Church	988	No person in the Colony has the power to give consent	Jan 15 1867	Father Chataigner
1277	Jan 5 1867	John Keating Isabella Stevenson	John Keating Isabella Sutherland 💍 1867/4300	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	26 22	Christchurch Christchurch	2 days 2 weeks	At the house of Mr. Sutherland	1036		Jan 5 1867	Rev. C. Fraser
1278	Jan 10 1867	Thomas Arthur Clover Harriet [UNCLEAR]		Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer	34 32	Christchurch Christchurch	1 mth 1 week	St Peeters Church Riccarton	998		Jan 10 1867	Rev. C. Bowen
1279	Jan 11 1867	Stephen Nisbworthy Rebecca Ward	Stephen Nosworthy Rebecca Ward 💍 1867/7924	Bachelor Spinster	Manager	35 25	Christchurch Papanui	3 days 2 years	Papanui Church	1218		Jan 11 1867	Rev. L. Moore

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).