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 572

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
3194	13 April 1874	James McKie Caroline Thruer	James McKie Caroline Turner 💍 1874/6850	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	33 23	Christchurch Do	5 days 5 days	St. Pauls Presbyterian Church	74/326		13 April 1874	Rev. A. F. Douglas
3195	13 April 1874	Daniel Davies Agnes Roberta Stewart	Daniel Davies Agnes Roberta Stewart 💍 1874/11182	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Servant	33 23	Christchurch Do	1 week 1 week	In the house of Mr. Burt	1809		13 April 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3196	14 April 1874	Peter Strachau Louisa Elizabeth Roberts	Peter Strachan Louisa Elizabeth Roberts 💍 1874/11176	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	23 24	Christchurch Do	4 days 3 weeks	In the house of Rev. C. Fraser	1809		14 April 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3197	14 April 1874	Daniel Jobberus Agnes Elizabeth Dash	Daniel Jobberns Agnes Elizabeth Dash 💍 1874/9046	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	29 23	Christchurch Christchurch	6 months 3 years	St. Lukes Church Christchurch	74/1080		14 April 1874	Rev. E. A. Lingard
3198	15 April 1874	Edward McLeish Ursula Wexford	Edward Hutchinson Ursula Wafforn 💍 1874/6853	Widower Spinster	Coachman Servant	38 26	Cashmere Do	2 years 4 months	In the house of Rev. A. F. Douglas	74/327		15 April 1874	Rev. A. F. Douglas
3199	17 April 1874	Arthur Troughey Catherine Ward	Arthur Haughey Catherine Ward 💍 1874/8989	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	27 26	Christchurch Do	10 years 7 years	In the Roman Catholic Church	74/1061		17 April 1874	Rev. J. Fru Burger
3200	17 April 1874	John Timerpley Elizabeth Collins	"not solemnized"	Bachelor Spinster	Catholic Reader Servant	21 23	Christchurch Christchurch	12 years 5 years	St. Lukes Church Christchurch			17 April 1874	Rev. E. A. Lingard
3201	21 April 1874	Thomas William Alexander Edith Harriet Rogers	Thomas William Lewis Edith Harriet Rogers 💍 1874/13240	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	20 18	Christchurch Do	3 months 1 year	St. Johns Church	2520	Edward Rogers, father	21 April 1874	Rev. H. G. Watson
3202	21 April 1874	Charles Cole Clara Selina Wright	Charles Cole Mary Ann Harvey 💍 1874/10987	Gardener Spinster	Servant	30 21	Do Harewood Road	5 years 6 months	In the Registrars Office			21 April 1874	Registrar of Marriages
3203	23 April 1874	James Scoth Mary Jane Ede	James Scott Margaret Ede 💍 1874/11188	Bachelor Spinster	Dresser Servant	29 16	Ashburton Christchurch	5 years 3 days	In the house of Rev. C. Fraser	1811	Benjamin Ede, father	23 April 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3204	23 April 1874	Christian Christianson Karen Petersen	Christian Christiansen Karen Petersen 💍 1874/7897	Widower Widow	Labourer Servant	29 36	Christchurch [UNCLEAR]	1 week 5 months	St. Michaels Church	74/688		23 April 1874	Rev. H. J. Edwards

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).