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 456

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
2784	20 November 1872	James Tait Frances Emily Wheeler	James Tait Frances Emily Wheeler 💍 1872/6323	Widower Spinster	Contractor Housekeeper	39 31	Christchurch Do	10 years 3 Months	In the House of Mr Tait	972/1571		20 November 1872	A Douglas
2785	21 November 1872	Martin Fitzgibbon Johanna Flattery		Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	28 22	Christchurch do	3 weeks	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	701/1591		21 November 1872	Rev. J. M. Leahy
2786	21 November 1872	John Fahey Margaret Quane	John Fahy Margaret Quane 💍 1872/6380	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	30 21	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 3 years	In the Roman Catholic Chapel	731/1590		21 November 1872	Red. J. M. Leahy
2787	21 November 1872	Augustus Thruer Elizabeth Ann Thomas	Angus Turner Elizabeth Ann Thomas 💍 1872/6254	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	28 19	Christchurch Do	10 years 10 years	In the Church of St. Michael	712/1578	William Thomas, father	21 November 1872	Very Rev. Dean Jacob
2788	23 November 1872	William Gimblett Elizabeth Burman	William Gimblett Elizabeth Burman 💍 1872/8864	Bachelor Widow	Gardener Housekeeper	28 33	Ferry Road Do	2 years 7 years	In the Wesleyan Church	712/1540		23 November 1872	Rev. J. H. Flitch
2789	27 November 1872	Ludwig Bergh Elizabeth Marlin	Ludwig Bergh Elizabeth Marley 💍 1872/9353	Bachelor Spinster	Ironmonger	25 25	Christchurch Do	5½ years 2½ years	In the Church of St. John	731/1606		12 December 1872	Very Rev. Dean Jacob
2790	29 November 1872	Edward Matthew Groth Maria Honora Fisher	Edward Matthew Bond Honoria Maria Fisher 💍 1873/6829	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	33 22	Christchurch Do	6 Months	In the House of J. R. C. Fraser	731/1601		27 November 1872	J. R. C. Fraser
2791	2 December 1872	John Alphert Anna Patterson		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	30 20	Christchurch Do	3 Days 3 Days	In the House of J. R. C. Fraser	724/1603		2 December 1872	Rev. C. Fraser
2792	2 December 1872	Thomas Braddell Lorra Donovan		Bachelor Spinster	Painter Servant	23 24	Christchurch Do	1½ year 6 years	In the Church of St. Luke	724/1605		17 December 1872	J. D. Lugard

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).