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 452

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
2748	13 September 1872	Samuel Paget Pamela Wright	Samuel Paget Pamela Wright 💍 1872/6239	Bachelor Spinster	Billiardsmarker Dressmaker	25 23	Christchurch Do	1 year 2 years	In the Church of St Michael	72/1543		13 September 1872	Very Rev Dean Jacobs
2749	13 September 1872	Anders Lundberg Georgina Amelia Gunderson	Anders Lundberg Georgina Amelia Gunderson 💍 1872/6566	Bachelor Spinster	Butler Servant	30 30	Christchurch Do	1 week 1 week	In the House of Rev C Fraser	72/1654		13 September 1872	Rev C Fraser
2750	18 September 1872	James Lewis Magdaline Sundberg	James Lewis Magdalene Judex 💍 1872/6569	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	40 22	Christchurch Do	2 years 2 years	In the House of Rev C Fraser	72/1570		18 September 1872	Rev A J Long
2751	24 September 1872	Francis James Reeder Caroline Annie Pageon	Francis James Reider Caroline Annie Pogsen 💍 1872/6320	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	22 22	Christchurch Do	3 years 1 year	In the House of Mr Kay	72/1655		24 September 1872	Rev C Fraser
2752	24 September 1872	Edwin Cesborne Mary Ann Shane		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	30 25	Little River Christchurch	4 years 1 month	In the House of Rev C Fraser	72/1656		24 September 1872	Rev C Fraser
2753	25 September 1872	John Collier Mary Jane Hamilton	John Collier Mary Jane Hamilton 💍 1872/6572	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Servant	30 23	Christchurch Do	30 days 12 days	In the House of Rev C Fraser			25 September 1872	Rev C Fraser
2754	25 September 1872	John Beattie Emma Stillwell		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	25 21	Christchurch Do	5 years 6 years	In the House of Rev Campbell	72/1585		25 September 1872	Rev J Campbell
2755	27 September 1872	Denis Fitzgerald Jane Rodgers	Denis Fitzgerald Jane Rodgers 💍 1872/6365	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	27 26	Papanui Do	5 mths 2 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	72/1585	Elizabeth Fitzgerald, mother	27 September 1872	Rev J M Terry
2756	28 September 1872	John Russell Frew Margant Annie Hawkins	John Russell French Margaret Annie Hawkins 💍 1872/6170	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	25 18	Christchurch Do	3 years 5 years	In the Church of St Luke	72/1520	Ann Hawkins, mother	28 September 1872	Rev J H Liggins

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).