Intentions to Marry, 1871

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840383, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, November 15 2024

Page 487

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 December 1871

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
2538	27 October 1871	Frederick Blakk Mary Lavinia Vareoe	Frederick Clark Mary Lavinia Varcoe 💍 1871/7659	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	29 19	Papanui Do	3 years 5 years	In the Church Papanui	289	William Vareoe, Father	29 October 1871	Rev L Moore
2539	31 October 1871	Frederick Robert Billeus Euma A Daltry		Bachelor Spinster	Shopman	27 21	Kaiapoi Waltham	2 years 7 years	Wesleyan Chapee Kaiapoi			31 October 1871	Rev R A Fitchett
2540	1 November 1871	James Lawberh Eliza Eare	James Lambert Eliza Earl 💍 1871/8811	Bachelor Spinster Servant	Labourer	48 38	Christchurch Do	10 years 10 years	In the Church St Michael Christchurch	680		1 November 1871	The Very Rev Dean Jacobs
2541	2 November 1871	Henry Ballagh Eliza Love	Henry Ballagh Eliza Love 💍 1871/8469	Bachelor Spinster Servant	Farmer	30 24	Malvern Hills Christchurch	3 years 3 years	In the House of Rev R G Fraser Christchurch	564		20 November 1871	Rev R G Fraser
2542	4 November 1871	Ephraim Paintou Ellen Waeker	Ephraim Painton Ellen Walker 💍 1871/8358	Widower Spinster Servant	Farmer	30 22	Rolleston Christchurch	22 years 3 months	In the Church St Luke Christchurch	526		4 November 1871	Rev E A Lingard
2543	7 November 1871	Raymond Frederick William Blowers Euma Pound	Raymond Frederick William Blowers Emma Pound 💍 1871/9042	Bachelor Spinster Servant	Labourer	23 26	Halswell Do	5 years 1 year	In the Church St Mary Halswell	7/17/99		7 November 1871	Rev C Bowen
2544	9 November 1871	George Newman Eumma Manche		Bachelor Spinster Teacher	Teacher	21 45	Christchurch Do	3 years 1 year	In the Church St John Christchurch	7/16/95	Father John Manche	9 November 1871	Rev E Bailey
2545	10 November 1871	Florance James Williams Clara Elizabeth Main	Florence James Williams Clara Elizabeth Main 💍 1871/9267	Bachelor Spinster	Cattle dealer	25 20	Christchurch Rolleston	1 year 1 year	In the House of Thomas Hauger Main Rolleston		Thomas Hauger Main Father	10 November 1871	Rev J F Pember
2546	10 November 1871	Andrew Gardiner Honor Aslou	Andrew Gardner Honor Aston 💍 1871/8814	Bachelor Spinster Servant	Labourer	25 26	Christchurch Do	2 weeks 2 years	In the Church St Michael Christchurch	681		10 November 1871	The Very Rev Dean Jacobs

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

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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).