Intentions to Marry, 1872

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840384, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 433

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
2600	23 January 1872	Azariah Ashley Sophia Holloway	Azariah Ashley Sophia Kelloway 💍 1872/6452	Bachelor Widow	Grocer Nurse	46 47	Christchurch Christchurch	7 mths 10 years	In the House of	72/1563		6 February 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
2601	24 January 1872	John Mullin Emily Frances Lachlan	John Mullin Emily Francis McConnell 💍 1872/8783	Bachelor Spinster	Constable Servant	32 23	Christchurch Do	3 Days 3 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	72/241		24 January 1872	Rev. J. M. Eauger
2602	27 January 1872	Archibald McLeod Catherine Colephance	Archibald McLeod Janet Don 💍 1872/7031	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 19	Throughton Do	2 weeks 7 years	Residence of Robert Colephance			12 February 1872	R. J. F. Longlas
2603	27 January 1872	Andrew Black Emma Bustead	Andrew Clark Emma Binstead 💍 1872/5591	Bachelor Spinster	Salesman Dressmaker	32 21	Christchurch Do	7 years 7 years	In the House of	72/1325		27 January 1872	Rev. Mr. Baxter
2604	29 January 1872	George Venables Henrietta Maria Patience Thompson	George Vennell Henrietta Maria Patience Lydia Sanderson Thompson 💍 1872/6137	Widower Widow	Gardener	57 52	Christchurch Do	2 years 1 year	St. Luke's Church	72/7509		29 January 1872	Rev. E. A. Lingard
2605	31 January 1872	Daniel Maher Mary Counley	Daniel Maher Mary Connolly 💍 1872/8795	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	27 21	Christchurch Do	11 months 3 Days	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	72/245		15 February 1872	Rev. J. M. Eauger
2606	31 January 1872	John Arney Eliza Harriet Rawnsley		Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Servant	31 28	Christchurch Do	3 Days 2 weeks	In the House of	72/1611		31 January 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
2607	31 January 1872	Elijah Yeamans Lee Eliza Jemima Lee	William Jannaway Eliza Jemima Lee 💍 1872/9389	Widower Widow	Coachman Servant	38 35	[UNCLEAR] Christchurch	2 months 2 months	In the Church of St. John	72/1626		29 January 1872	Rev. G. Bailey
2608	31 January 1872	Andus Raines Flora Alice Sillersly		Bachelor Spinster	Fruiterer Dressmaker	22 18	Christchurch Do	1 week 1 week	In the House of	72/1612	There is no person having authority to give Consent	31 January 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
2609	31 January 1872	John McBeath Mary Horvele	John McBeath Mary Horrell 💍 1872/6296	Bachelor Spinster	Cattle Dealer Servant	35 25	Christchurch Do	17 years 10 years	In the Scotch Church	72/1562		31 January 1872	F. A. Longlas
2610	31 January 1872	Thomas Bates Sophia Murison	Thomas Bates Sophia Murison 💍 1872/4836	Bachelor Spinster	Chainmaker	28 20	Christchurch Do	8 years 3 years	In the Church of St. John		There is no person having authority to give consent	31 January 1872	Rev. G. Bailey

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).