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 463

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
1917	15 April 1869	Hugh Harper Louisa Whittington	Elijah Harper Louisa Whittington 💍 1869/7842	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 21	Ferry Road	8 years	In the Church of St John	1221		15 April 1869	Rev. C. O'Bryen
1918	15 April 1869	Emma Swindell		Spinster		22	Christchurch	5 years	Christchurch	1246		16 April 1869	Rev. Michael
1919	16 April 1869	James Cooke		Bachelor	Coach driver	23	Christchurch	3 weeks	In the Church of St John	1222		16 April 1869	The Very Rev. Dean Christchurch
1920	16 April 1869	Edward Mingfield Alice Hawdon	Edward Wayfield Humphreys Alice Hawdon 💍 1869/7845	Bachelor Spinster	Sheepfarmer	27 19	Christchurch	3 weeks	In the Church of St John	1037	Joseph Hawdon, Father	16 April 1869	Rev. C. O'Bryen
1921	17 April 1869	William Gettings Catherine M[UNCLEAR]	William Gellins Catherine McVay 💍 1869/7308	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier	30 24	Christchurch Lincoln Road	6 years 18 mths	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1074		17 April 1869	Rev. Father Ch[UNCLEAR]
1922	17 April 1869	Thomas Sanders Agnes Phillips	Thomas Sanders Agnes Phillips 💍 1869/7416 Thomas Waters Annie Phillips 💍 1869/7830 Thomas Burt Margaret Phillips 💍 1869/7836	Bachelor Spinster	Wool sorter Dress maker	29 21	Ferry Road	5 mths	In the House of C. Fraser	1162		17 April 1869	Rev. C. Fraser
1923	19 April 1869	Andrew Jameson Mary Ann Bradshaw		Bachelor Spinster	Barrister & Solicitor of Supreme Court Servant	25 24	Christchurch	7 years	In the Church of St Michael	1162	Catherine Waite, mother	19 May 1869	The Very Rev. Dean Christchurch
1924	19 April 1869	Emanuel Muntz Isabella Waite		Bachelor Spinster	Fisherman	25 19	Ellesmere Christchurch	2 years 2 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1238		19 April 1869	Rev. Father Ch[UNCLEAR]
1925	19 April 1869	Alfred Heslop Frances Salton	Alfred Heslop Ann Frances Salter 💍 1869/7893	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	22 20	Christchurch St Albans	6 years 10 years	In the Wesleyan Chapel	1238	Edward Salton, Father	19 April 1869	Rev. J. Aldred
1926	21 April 1869	Seaton McLaughlan Elizabeth Patterson Robertson	Seaton McLaughlan Elizabeth Paterson Robinson 💍 1869/7428	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Servant	27 23	Avonside Riccarton	4 mths 1 week	In the House of Rev. Fraser	1079		21 April 1869	Rev. C. Fraser

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).