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 481

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
2172	4 December 1869	Lumley Morgan Mary Humphreys	Lumley Morgans Mary Humphreys 💍 1869/7920	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Housekeeper	34 23	Halswell Do	5 years 6 mths	In the Wesleyan Chapel	1248		December 21 1869	Rev. J. Buller
2173	6 December 1869	George Daniel Emma Selvia Varcoe	George Daniel Etherington Emma Selina Varcoe 💍 1869/7623	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 19	Papauni Do	1 week 3 years	In the Papauni Church	1144	William Varcoe, Father	December 6 1869	Rev. L. Moore
2174	8 December 1869	William Henry Ferguson Margaret Meade	William Henry Ferguson Margaret Meade 💍 1869/7698	Bachelor Spinster	Goal Warden	27 22	Christchurch Do	2 years 2 years	In the Church	1193		December 8 1869	The Very Rev. Dean Jacobs
2175	8 December 1869	Michael Naucarrow Margaret Patterson		Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	25 17	Christchurch Do	1 year 3 mths	In the House of Rev. C Fraser	1128	Charles Patterson, Father	December 8 1869	Rev. C. Fraser
2176	9 December 1869	Benjamin Milner Jane Burns	Benjamin Milner Jane Burns 💍 1870/7863	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor Housekeeper	38 38	Christchurch Do	4 years 4 years	In the House of Mrs. Burns, Whately Road	1316		December 20 1869	Rev. W. J. Habens
2177	11 December 1869	Patrick Connor Margaret Gilmore	Patrick Connor Margaret Gilmore 💍 1869/7368	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	32 24	Leeston Sydenham	2 years 2 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	1058		December 11 1869	Rev. Father Chervier
2178	11 December 1869	James Shilling Catherine McGraw	James Wylie Catherine McLennan 💍 1869/5493 James Reilly Catherine Harvey 💍 1869/6756	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	28 20	Christchurch Do	1 week 6 weeks	In the House of Rev. C Fraser	1124	Alexander McGraw declares that there is no person who can give consent	December 11 1869	Rev. C. Fraser
2179	14 December 1869	Arthur Postle Elizabeth Denmark	Arthur Postle Elizabeth Caryl Denmark 💍 1869/7806	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Dressmaker	42 37	Christchurch Do	4 mths 4 mths	In the Church	1209		December 14 1869	Rev. J. Elmslie
2180	16 December 1869	Robert Braybrook Sarah Ann Devonshire	Robert Braybrooke Sarah Ann Devonshire 💍 1869/7581	Widower Spinster	Manager of Flax works Housekeeper	34 22	Papauni Do	1 week 18 mths	In the House of Rev. C Fraser	1130		December 16 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).