Intentions to Marry, 1873

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840385, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke Howison at Archives NZ Wellington, December 4 2024

Page 583

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 March 1873

Certificates not issued for Henry Roberts/Mary Ann Foster, John Gates/Martha Brown

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
2832	9 January 1873	Thomas Giles Sarah Comyns	Thomas Giles Sarah Comyus 💍 1873/6835	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	30 23	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	In the Scotch Church	73/688		9 January 1873	Rev C Fraser
2833	9 January 1873	Henry Garland Mary Ann Carter	Henry Garland Mary Ann Carter 💍 1873/6838	Bachelor Spinster	Publican Housekeeper	41 29	Christchurch Christchurch	9 years 9 years	In the house of Rev C Fraser	73/689		9 January 1873	Rev C Fraser
2834	13 January 1873	Edwin Silk Sarah Amelia Tribe	Edwin Silk Sarah Amelia Tribe 💍 1873/6784	Bachelor Spinster	Station Master	36 24	Christchurch Christchurch	That 5 years	In the Church of St Luke Christchurch	73/691		13 January 1873	Rev E A Lingard
2835	14 January 1873	Fulbert Archer Elizabeth Charlotte Lyddon	Fulbert Archer Elizabeth Charlotte Lyddon 💍 1873/11257	Widower Spinster	Merchant	44 28	Christchurch Christchurch	1 week 6 weeks	In the Church of St Michael Christchurch	73/2207		14 January 1873	Very Rev Dean Jacobs
2836	15 January 1873	James Bennetts Mary McKay	James Bennett Mary McKay 💍 1873/11131	Bachelor Widow	Salooner Housekeeper	27 30	Christchurch Christchurch	2 weeks 8 years	In St Andrews Church Luam Street	73/2162		15 January 1873	Rev C Fraser
2838	24 January 1873	Frederick Denham Florence Fauley Thorpe	Frederick Denham Florence Stanley Thorpe 💍 1873/6790	Bachelor Spinster	Salesman	26 26	Christchurch Do	2 years 2 months	In the Church of St Luke Christchurch	73/693		8 February 1873	Rev E A Lingard
2839	24 January 1873	John Fraser Bridget Leslie	John Fraser Bridget Leslie 💍 1873/6841	Bachelor Spinster	Baker Milliner	27 26	Christchurch Christchurch	8 years 2 years	In the house of the Rev C Fraser Luam Street	73/091		24 January 1873	Rev C Fraser
2840	25 January 1873	Edward Nough Millett Catherine Learon	Edward Waugh Millett Katherine Fearon 💍 1873/6787	Bachelor Spinster	Gentleman	33 19	Christchurch Christchurch	10 years 12 years	In the Church of St Luke	73/692	Learon, mother	25 January 1873	Rev E A Lingard
2841	24 January 1873	George Junius Louis Jane Walker	George Innes Jane Walker 💍 1873/5129	Widower Spinster	Bricklayer Servant	42 39	Christchurch Christchurch	22 years 6 years	In the house of Mr Sutherland St Asaph Street Christchurch	73/104		24 January 1873	Very Rev A F Douglas

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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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).