Intentions to Marry, 1869

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840381, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 456

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
1052	18 January 1869	Michael Joyce Ann Faucet	Michael Joyce Ann Fawcett 💍 1869/7377	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	25 24	Christchurch Christchurch	2 years 4 years	In the Church	1060		18 January 1869	Rev. C Fraser
1053	18 January 1869	William Langdown Eliza Davis	William Langdown Eliza Davis 💍 1869/7779	Widower Spinster	Merchant	41 28	Ferry Road Heathcote	6 years 5 years	In the Church of St. John	1200		18 January 1869	Rev. G. J. Cholmondeley
1054	19 January 1869	Frank Hop River Bridget Taafle	Frank Hopkins Bridget Taaffe 💍 1869/7704	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	24 22	Christchurch Christchurch	15 years 2 years	In the Church of St. Luke	1175		19 January 1869	Rev. E. H. Lingard
1055	20 January 1869	Robert Douglas Campbell Catherine Ellen Miller	Robert Douglas Campbell Catherine Ellen Miller 💍 1869/7782	Bachelor Spinster	Sheep Farmer	26 20	Heathcote Tapauni	1 week 3 Days	In the Church of St. Mark	1201	There is no person in the Colony having power to give Consent	20 January 1869	Rev. G. J. Cholmondeley
1056	21 January 1869	Aaron Pinkerton Letty Truhauf		Bachelor Spinster	Dealer Housekeeper	36 26	Christchurch Christchurch	4 years 4 years	In the Registration Office	1011		12 March 1869	B. Barnerson Jr.
1057	15 January 1869	Jonathan Lilley Ellen Croach	Jonathan Lilley Ellen Croach 💍 1869/7632	Widower Widow	Farmer	65 50	Riccarton Christchurch	7 years 8 years	In the Church	1149		15 January 1869	The Very Rev. Jacob
1057	22 January 1869	Antonio Gures Rose Ebbs	Antonio Gares Rose Ebbs 💍 1869/7827	Bachelor Spinster	Fish salesman Servant	32 21	Christchurch Christchurch	5½ years 6 mths	In the Church of St. John	1216		22 January 1869	Rev. C Bryen Hoare
1058	23 January 1869	John Flutty Harriet Johnston	John Flutey Harriet Johnston 💍 1869/7380	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	23 22	Christchurch Christchurch	4 mths 3 mths	In the House	1062		23 January 1869	Rev. C Fraser
1060	18 January 1869	John Jardun Helena Wolf	John Gardiner Helena Jago 💍 1869/7374	Bachelor Widow	Farmer	24 35	Christchurch Christchurch	3 Days 3 Days	In the House of Mr. Harrison Market Place	1061		18 January 1869	Rev. C Fraser

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).