Intentions to Marry, 1874

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840386, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 566

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
3147	28 February 1874	Mark Kain Dora Morrison	Mark Cain Dora Morrissey 💍 1874/6982	Bachelor Widow	Miner	34 36	Hawkins Do	6 years 5 years	Do - Roman Catholic Chapel Christchurch	74/337		28 February 1874	Rev. J. J. Chervier
3148	3 March 1874	Ernest Cotteth Martha Garce	Ernest Collett Martha Varcoe 💍 1874/6904	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	21 25	Christchurch River Styx	14 years 15 years	In the Registrar Office Christchurch	74/345		3 March 1874	Registrar of marriages (B. Parkerson Esq.)
3149	3 March 1874	Alexander Adams Annie Barley	Alexander Adams Annie Bailey 💍 1874/6835	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Storekeeper	34 34	Christchurch Do	6 years 5 years	In St Lukes Christchurch	74/		3 March 1874	Rev. E. A. Lingard
3150	4 March 1874	Emon Page Smart Frances Pentacost	Ermon Page Smart Frances Pentecost 💍 1874/7642	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	29 21	Templeton Christchurch	6 years 15 months	In the Scotch Church Christchurch	74/601		4 March 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3151	4 March 1874	David McFarlane Caroline Wedge	Daniel McFarlane Caroline Wedge 💍 1874/6832	Bachelor Spinster	Stockman Servant	22 22	Christchurch do	11 years 22 years	St. Lukes Church Christchurch	74/320		4 March 1874
3152	5 March 1874	Charles Yelverton O'Connor Susan Letitia Reid	Charles Yelverton O'Connor Susan Letitia Ness 💍 1874/6940	Bachelor Spinster	Civil Engineer	32 24	Christchurch Do	1 year 10 years	In the house of Thos. Rees Gloucester Street	74/357		5 March 1874	Rev. H. Blasson
3153	5 March 1874	George Biddings Mary Elizabeth Adams	George Giddings Mary Elizabeth Adams 💍 1874/6913	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	36 22	Greendale Do	6 years 6 years	In the Baptist Chapel Christchurch	74/348		5 March 1874	Rev. R. Thornton
3154	5 March 1874	Hugh McMillan Margaret Brown	Hugh Millar Margaret Brown 💍 1874/7654 Charles McPherson Margaret Brown 💍 1874/12967	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	21 20	Christchurch Do	3 weeks 10 years	In the house of Rev. C. Fraser	74/	Charles Brown, father	20 March 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3155	6 March 1874	John James Houan Ann Shayler	John James Noonan Ann Shayler 💍 1874/6907	Bachelor Spinster	Dairy Farmer Servant	34 34	Christchurch Do	7 days 7 days	In the Registrar Office Robinsons Bay	74/346		6 March 1874	Registrar of marriages (B. Parkerson
3156	7 March 1874	Thomas Bushells Parce Louisa Watson Fry	Thomas Bushell Pierce Louisa Watson Day 💍 1874/6952	Bachelor Spinster	Gardener	29 21	Woolston Do	3 weeks 3 weeks	In the Woolston Church	74/361		7 March 1874	Rev. J. Cholmeley
3157	9 March 1874	Ralph Wilson Ellen Whitmore	Ralph Wilson Ellen Whitmore 💍 1874/6838	Bachelor Spinster	Brickmaker Nurse	26 23	Colombo Street South Addington	10 weeks 2 years	In St. Lukes Church	74/322		9 March 1874	Rev. E. A. Lingard

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).