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 435

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
1401	May 23 1867	Benjamin Alfred Buckley Lizzie Williams	Benjamin Alfred Buckley Lizzie Josephine Walsh 💍 1867/7822 Benjamin Alfred Buckley Lysie Josephine Walsh 💍 1867/7327	Bachelor Spinster	Inspector of Police	38 22	Christchurch Christchurch	10 days 2 years	In the Church	1013		May 25 1867	The Very Revd the Dean
1402	May 25 1867	John Brightling Harriet Bland Tarrant	John Brightling Harriet Blanche Tarrant 💍 1867/7825	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	24 20	Christchurch Christchurch	1 year 1 year	In the Church	1184	You as no person in the colony having power to give consent	May 25 1867	The Very Revd the Dean
1403	May 29 1867	Henry Walsh Bessy O'Donovan	Henry Walsh Bessie O'Donovan 💍 1867/7330	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk in Police office	34 22	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 3 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1014		May 29 1867	Rev. Father Chataigner
1404	May 30 1867	John Thomas William Emma Buckell	John Thomas Williams Emma Buckett 💍 1867/7147	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	29 22	Christchurch Christchurch	5 years 2 years	In the house	953		May 30 1867	Rev. G. Buddle
1405	May 30 1867	William Campbell Margaret Kelso Hindle	William Campbell Margaret Kelso 💍 1867/4324	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	24 22	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 4 years	In St Paul's Church	1119		May 30 1867	Rev. G. Grant
1406	May 31 1867	David Stewart Grover Sarah Patton	David Stewart Groven Sarah Patton 💍 1867/7705	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Dressmaker	25 24	Christchurch Christchurch	1 month 3 years	In the Church of St John	1142		May 31 1867	Rev. C Bryan Hoare
1407	June 1 1867	William Patrick Walsh Catherine Kirwan	William Patrick Walsh Catherine Kirwan 💍 1867/7150	Bachelor Spinster	Policeman Dressmaker	34 29	Christchurch Christchurch	4 years 3 years	In the Wesleyan Chapel	954		June 1 1867	Rev. G. Buddle
1408	June 6 1867	Charles Crane Emma Jane Preleaven	Charles Oram Emma Jane Treleaven 💍 1867/7708	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper	34 22	Christchurch Styx Mill	4 days 10 years	In the Church of St John	1143		June 6 1867	Rev. C Bryan Hoare
1409	June 7 1867	Thomas Patrick McRae Kate Price	Thomas Elrick McRae Kate Price 💍 1867/7948	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Barmaid	31 26	Christchurch Christchurch	1 week 3 years	In the Baptist Chapel	1226		June 7 1867	Rev. Thornton

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).