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 446

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
1472	Sept 2	Manuel Caro Bridget Browne	Manuel Calo Bridget Brouder 💍 1867/7360	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	30 28	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 2 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1024		Sept 2	Rev Father Chataigner
1473	Sept 3	James Butler Anne Marley	James Butler Ann Malley 💍 1867/7363 Edward Butler Annie Miller 💍 1867/6463	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	25 22	Christchurch Christchurch	5 years 2 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1025		Sept 3	Rev Father Chataigner
1474	Sept 3	George Seaton Mary Anne Rodgers	George Seaton Mary Ann Rodgers 💍 1867/7546	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	30 24	Courtenay Courtenay	4 years 4 Days	In the House of Thomas Ware	1088		Sept 4	Rev C Fraser
1475	Sept 5	John Furlong Julia Donohue	John Turton Julia Donoghue 💍 1867/7366	Bachelor Spinster	Publican Servant	28 26	Christchurch Christchurch	1 week 1 week	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1026		Sept 6	Rev Father Chataigner
1476	Sept 6	Joseph Pattison Catherine Black	Joseph Pattieson Catherine Blake 💍 1867/7654	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Cook	24 25	Lincoln Road Lincoln Road	3 Days 3 weeks	In the Scotch Church Litchfield Street	1125		Sept 6	Rev G Grant
1477	Sept 9	James Heslop Ellen Welch	James Heslip Ellen Welsh 💍 1867/7369	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	24 22	Christchurch Christchurch	1 year 1 year	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1029		Sept 9	Rev Father Chataigner
1478	Sept 13	Maurice de Place Emma Evert Newsome	Mouritz De Place Emma Evers Newsome 💍 1867/7549	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman Servant	26 18	Papanui Christchurch	6 months 6 months	In the House	1589	George Newsome, father	Sept 13	Rev C Fraser
1479	Sept 14	John King Edith Anne Cook	John King Edith Annie Cooke 💍 1867/7912 John King Kate Minihan 💍 1867/6400	Bachelor Spinster	Auctioneer	29 20	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 3 years	In the Church St Luke	1214		Sept 14	Rev S Leigard
1480	Sept 14	Robert Wasley Hannah King	Robert Oakley Hannah King 💍 1867/7243	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	35 26	Christchurch Christchurch	9 years 3 years	In the Riccarton Church	985		Sept 14	Rev C Turrell

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).