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 467

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
1953	28 May 1869	Alexander M. Lachlan Elizabeth Rothery	Alexander McLachlan Elizabeth Rothery 💍 1869/9558	Bachelor Spinster	Barman	25 19	Leeston Southbridge	3 years 3 years	In the English Church	1835	Henry Rothery, Father	28 May 1869	Rev. G. Bluett
1954	28 May 1869	George Warren Elizabeth Mary Rudd	George Warren Elizabeth Mary Rudd 💍 1869/7899	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 18	Selwyn Christchurch	1 year 2 years	In the House of Rev. I. Buddle	1240	George Rudd, Father	28 May 1869	Rev. I. Buddle
1955	28 May 1869	Neil Wylie Phillis Urry	Neil Wylie Charlotte Urry 💍 1869/7452	Widower Spinster	Engineer	29 20	Christchurch Christchurch	2 years 9 years	In the House of Rev. Raby Nurse	1087	Richard Raby Nurse, Father	28 May 1869	Rev. Raby Nurse
1956	28 May 1869	Thomas Franklin Main Anna Maria Downes	Thomas Franklin Main Anna Maria Donovan 💍 1869/7326	Bachelor Spinster	Cattle driver Servant	22 24	Christchurch Christchurch	9 years 6 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	10143		28 May 1869	Rev. Father
1957	1 June 1869	Thomas Frederick Foulkes Ann Thomas	Thomas Frederick Foulkes Ann Thompson 💍 1869/7443	Widower Widow	Farmer	50 43	Christchurch Christchurch	32 days 3 Days	In the House of Rev. C. Frase	1086		1 June 1869	Rev. C. Frase
1958	2 June 1869	Richard Powell Sarah Swinbourne	Richard Powell Sarah Swinbourne 💍 1869/7743	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	32 25	Christchurch Christchurch	18 mths 3 years	In the Church of St. Luke	1188		2 June 1869	Rev. G. H. Luke
1959	13 June 1869	Mary Ann Mason		Widow		31	Christchurch	10 years	In the Church of St. Michael	1163		13 June 1869
1960	4 June 1869	Richard Boardman Alice Gee		Widower Spinster	Hawker	40 20	Christchurch Christchurch	8 years 1 year	In the Church of St. Michael	1163	Thomas Athinson Khull, father	4 June 1869	Rev. Thomas Athinson Khull
1961	5 June 1869	Richard Athinson Mary Ann Annand	Richard Atkinson Mary Ann Hannah Summerton 💍 1869/7272 Richard Boardman Mary Ann Mason 💍 1869/7671	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Dressmaker	25 20	Christchurch Lincoln Road	10 years 10 years	In the House of J.M. Summerton	1023	Thomas Summerton, Father	5 June 1869	Rev. M. B.

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).