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 443

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
1683	20 May 1872	Murdoch McLean Ellen Ready	Murdoch McLean Ellen Keady 💍 1872/8816	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	29 29	Christchurch do	2 weeks 9 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	72/2		May 21 1872	Rev. J.M. Guyot
1684	20 May 1872	Charles Smithell Annie Coundly	Charles Smithel Annie Connely 💍 1872/6494 Charles Seymour Annie Manly 💍 1872/5966	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	32 26	Prebbleton Christchurch	3 years 3 years	In the House of Robt Fraser	1042		May 22 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
1685	21 May 1872	Thomas Hore Annis Cosprons	Thomas Hoult Annis Oxspring 💍 1872/9386	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Barmaid	30 31	Christchurch do	3 years 4 years	In the Church of St. John	1027		June 3 1872	Rev. E. Bailey
1686	21 May 1872	William John Fisher Lillie Vere		Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	24 22	Christchurch do	14 years 2 years	In the Church of St. Michael	1072		June 5 1872	Very Rev. Dean Jacobs
1687	23 May 1872	George Palmer Eliza Ann Hanson	George Joseph Palmer Eliza Annie Henson 💍 1872/6218	Bachelor Spinster	Baker Servant	25 21	Christchurch do	3 weeks 6 months	In the Church of St. Michael	1072		June 5 1872	Very Rev. Dean Jacobs
1688	25 May 1872	James Scott Mary Jane Smith	James Scott Mary Jane Smith 💍 1872/6497	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	29 20	bourn Terray do	5 months 16 months	In the House of Robt Fraser	1072	There is no person having authority to give consent	May 25 1872	Robt Fraser
1689	28 May 1872	Richard Crostele Jane Johnston	Richard Croskell Jane Johnson 💍 1872/6221	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	23 23	North Selwyn St. Albans	5 years 9 years	In the Church of St. Michael	1072		June 3 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
1690	1 June 1872	Abadiah Lade Susannah Price	Obadiah Eade Susannah Price 💍 1872/6506	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	22 25	Courtenay do	2 years 5 years	In the House of Robt Fraser	1072		June 3 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
1691	3 June 1872	Robert Ray Charlotte Higgins	Robert Ray Charlotte Higgins 💍 1872/6509	Bachelor Spinster	Grazier	31 29	Riccarton do	5 years 1 year	Christchurch	1072		June 3 1872	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).