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 452

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
1318	Nov 14	Israel Shrimpton Maria Heslop	Jonah Shrimpton Maria Heslop 💍 1867/7171	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk in post office	28 23	Christchurch Do	6 mths near Durham Street	In the Wesleyan Chapel	961		Nov 14	Rev. J Buller
1319	Nov 14	James Currow Ellen Keefe	James Curren Ellen Keff 💍 1867/7384	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	25 25	Christchurch Do	3 years 2 years Christchurch	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1032		Nov 14	Rev Father Chataigner
1320	Nov 14	Alfred Alfrey Emma Elizabeth Gammon	Alfred Allfrey Emma Elizabeth Gammon 💍 1867/7666	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	25 24	Christchurch Do	2 mths 1 mth Cashel Street	In the house Mr Beattie	1129		Nov 14	Rev S J Grant
1321	Nov 14	William Marden Clara Antoinette Welbourn Willis	William Mardon Clara Antoinette Welbourne Willis 💍 1867/7918	Bachelor Spinster	Commission Agent	24 18	Christchurch Do	4 years	In the Church of St Luke	1211	Mother	Nov 14	Rev C J Meyrick
1322	Nov 18	Oscar Hugh Legrange Mary Ann Lynch	Oscar Hugh Le Grange Mary Ann Lynch 💍 1867/7741	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	36 26	Christchurch Do	2 years 3 mths Latimer Square	Church of St John	1134		Nov 18	Rev C Bowen Hoare
1323	Nov 18	James Herow Sarah Nevin	James Heron Sarah Nevin 💍 1867/7873	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	27 23	Malvern Hills Christchurch	4 years 2 years Christchurch	In the Church of St Michael	1201		Nov 18	The Very Rev the Dean
1324	Nov 18	Samuel Cox Martha Morrow	Samuel Cox Martha Morrow 💍 1867/7951	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	26 31	Christchurch Do	4 years 2 weeks High Street	In the House of Thomas Lee	1229		Nov 18	Rev W Thomas
1325	Nov 19	John Glenn Wood Henrietta Hoft	John Gibson Ward Henrietta Hoft 💍 1867/7579	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor Servant	23 21	Christchurch Do	1 year 2 years Christchurch	In the House of Mr. Frazer	1099		Nov 19	Rev C Fraser
1326	Nov 21	Michael Scott Campbell Ellen Lucy Templer	Michael Scott Campbell Ellen Lucy Templer 💍 1867/7246	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	30 19	Christchurch Riccarton	2 years 1 year	In the Riccarton Church	985	John Arthur Templer, Father	Nov 21	Rev G Carpenter

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).