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 442

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
2674	1 May 1872	William Brown Mary Ann Dalton	William Brown Mary Ann Dalton 💍 1872/9359	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 21	Yandale Farm Springston	1 month 8 years	Riccarton Church	101/1871	George Dalton, father	1 May 1872	Rev. C. Bowen
2675	2 May 1872	George Watt [UNCLEAR]		Bachelor Spinster	Bushman	22 20	Christchurch Christchurch	3 Days 5 weeks	In the House of J. Fraser	57/1872	[UNCLEAR], father	10 May 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
2676	4 May 1872	William Lewis Ann Hoult	William Bayne Ann Houlihan 💍 1872/9350	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	26 23	Christchurch Do	1 week 1 week	In the Church of St. John	71/1872		4 May 1872	Rev. E. Bailey
2677	6 May 1872	John Hislop Catherine Elizabeth Herrick	John Hislop Catharine Elizabeth Ferrick 💍 1872/3654	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	26 21	Cashmere Christchurch	1 year 6 months	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	12/1872		May 27 1872	Rev. J. M. Leguian
2678	8 May 1872	John Campbell Elizabeth Gale	John Campbell Elizabeth Hall 💍 1872/6272 Donald Campbell Elisabeth Anderson 💍 1872/6005	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 26	Christchurch Do	3 Days 3 Days	In the Scotch Church	12/1854		May 22 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
2679	8 May 1872	William Nairn Marjery Duncan	William Ormandy Mary Jane Duncan 💍 1872/6371	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 21	Lincoln Do	4 years 4 years	Lyttelton Deanery	92/1628		May 8 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
2680	13 May 1872	Alfred Allard Mary Ann Eastright	Alfred Allard Mary Ann Rastrick 💍 1872/6149	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	25 20	[UNCLEAR] Do	5 years 5 years	In the house of C. Fraser	1513		May 14 1872	Rev. E. A. Lingard
2681	13 May 1872	Alexander Barnet Catherine [UNCLEAR]		Bachelor Spinster	Book Servant Servant	31 21	Christchurch Do	1 week 1 week	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	12/1872		May 13 1872	Rev. J. M. Leguian
2682	13 May 1872	Alexander Calder Jane Thompson	Alexander Calder Jane Thomson 💍 1872/6311	Bachelor Spinster	Servant	20 21	Riccarton Do	4 years 4 years	In the House of R. A. Douglas	92/1866		May 15 1872	Rev. J. F. Douglas

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).