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 435

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
2622	15 February 1872	Thomas Foley Elizabeth Ann Down	Thomas Foley Elizabeth Ann Down 💍 1872/9377	Bachelor Spinster	Plasterer Servant	24 26	Christchurch Do	2 years 2 years	In the Church of St John	72/624		February 1872	Rev. E Bailey
2623	16 February 1872	John Finlay Alice Hitchens	John Finlay Alice Hitchings 💍 1872/6449	Bachelor Spinster	Moulder Servant	26 23	Christchurch Do	2 years 5 months	In the House of	72/1045		March 1872	Rev. C Fraser
2624	20 February 1872	George Wilson Maria Walker	George Wilson Maria Walker 💍 1872/4848	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	30 24	Avonside Do	3 years 10 years	In the Avonside Church			February 20 1872	Rev. E Giles
2625	20 February 1872	Gorham Lambert Ellen Nisbett	Gorham Lambert Ellen Nisbett 💍 1872/4851	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	30 24	Christchurch Do	6 years 5 years	In the Avonside Church			February 25 1872	Rev. E Giles
2626	26 February 1872	Samuel Clowes Emma Hopper	Samuel Clover Emma Hopper 💍 1872/6407	Widower Widow	Miller Servant	29 25	Christchurch Do	3 days 13 years	In the House of Mr Guilford Ashford	72/1600		February 26 1872	Rev. W Kirk
2627	26 February 1872	Charles Thomas Fracheson Kiernan Catherine Kindesley	Charles Thomas Kiernan Catherine Kindlysides 💍 1872/6200	Bachelor Spinster	Upholsterer Servant	22 21	Christchurch Do	4 months 8 years	In the Church of St Michael	72/1530		March 12 1872	Very Rev Dean Jacobs
2628	28 February 1872	Stephen Adolphus Graydon Ann Elizabeth Kenning	Stephen Adolphus Swaysland Ann Elizabeth Kennington 💍 1872/6446	Widower Spinster	Gardener Servant	45 17	Christchurch Do	1 year 5 years	In the House of	72/614	Kennington Father	February 28 1872	Rev. C Fraser
2629	28 February 1872	John Brown Johanna Gibbs	John Brown Johanna Gibbs 💍 1872/8852	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Dressmaker	26 21	Christchurch Do	6 years 1 year	In the Wesleyan Chapel Montreal Street	72/2236		February 28 1872	Rev. A. R. Fitchett
2630	2 March 1872	Martin Brady Rachael Proctor	Martin Brady Rachel Proctor 💍 1872/6206	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	24 25	Templeton Christchurch	3 years 4 years	In the Church of St Michael	72/1532		March 16 1872	Very Rev Dean Jacobs

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).