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 453

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
151	1 October 1872	Charles Hofmeister Johanna Warzuckia	Charles August Hofmeister Johanna Warzinski 💍 1872/6167	Widower Cook	Carpenter	30 24	Christchurch do	10 years 6 months	In the Church of St. Luke	72/1579		1 October 1872	Rev. E.A. Lingard
152	3 October 1872	James Musgrove Sarah Ann Cribb	James Musgrave Sarah Ann Cribb 💍 1872/6245	Bachelor Spinster	Waggoner	28 18	Christchurch do	1 week 1 week	In the Church	72/1545	[UNCLEAR] having authority to give consent	3 October 1872	Very Rev. Dean Jacobs
153	3 October 1872	Arthur Joseph Hawdon Sarah Elizabeth Barker	Arthur Joseph Hawdon Sarah Elizabeth Barker 💍 1872/6248	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	28 21	Christchurch Do	[UNCLEAR] 2 1/2 years	In the Church of St. Michaels	72/1546		3 October 1872	Very Rev. Dean Jacobs
154	5 October 1872	Charles Brown Dora Eliza Bennett	Charles Brown Dora Eliza Bennett 💍 1872/6410	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	21 25	Christchurch Do	3 years 1 year	In the House of Mr. Beamish Peterboro' Street	72/1602		5 October 1872	Rev. W. Kirk
155	7 October 1872	John Charles Standidge Sarah Jane Simpson	John Charles Standidge Sarah Jane Simpson 💍 1872/6575	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman	26 22	Christchurch Do	3 Days 3 Days	In the House of Mr & Mrs Fraser	72/1651		7 October 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
156	7 October 1872	Patrick Morland Sophia Maguire	Patrick Morland Sophia Maguire 💍 1872/6368	Bachelor Spinster	Coachman Servant	26 21	Christchurch Do	7 years 2 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	72/1586		23 October 1872	Rev. J.M. Lenyen
157	10 October 1872	Augustus Florance Elizabeth Hamilton	Augustus Florance Elizabeth Hamilton 💍 1872/6173	Bachelor Spinster	Compositor	25 25	Christchurch New Brighton	10 years 5 years	In the Church of St. Luke	72/1521		13 October 1872	Rev. E.A. Lingard
158	12 October 1872	Edwin Greaves Susannah Collins	Edwin Greaves Susannah Collins 💍 1872/8906	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	34 26	Springston Do	4 years 4 years	In the House of Mr. Collins	72/2455		25 October 1872	Rev. C. Bowen
159	14 October 1872	Richard Richardson Ann Doell	Richard Richardson Ann Doell 💍 1872/9404	Bachelor Spinster	Trainer	26 17	Riccarton Do	5 years 10 years	Mr. James Opell Riccarton Church	72/1633	[UNCLEAR] Mather	14 October 1872	Rev. C. Bowen

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).