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 587

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
3347	20 August 1874	Charles Harcourt Leah Roberts	Charles Harcourt Leah Roberts 💍 1874/9766	Bachelor Spinster	Plumber Servant	27 24	Christchurch do	1 year do	In the house of Mr. Snelson	1326		20 August 1874	Rev. B.W. Housbrooke
3348	20 August 1874	Thomas Turner Lucy Lee	Thomas Turner Lucy Lee 💍 1874/10597	Widower Spinster	Farmer Seamstress	51 32	Christchurch do	1 year do	The Free Methodist Church	1610	Their mothers	20 August 1874	Rev. S. Macfarlane
3349	20 August 1874	Thomas Ince Agnes Gultres	Thomas McKie Agnes Gilchrist 💍 1874/11383	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	31 26	Malvern Christchurch	6 years 1 year	In the house of Mr. Price	1802		20 August 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3350	21 August 1874	William Viney Elizabeth Borrett	William Viney Elizabeth Borrett 💍 1874/11011	Widower Spinster	Baker	35 36	Christchurch Christchurch	8 years 1 year	In the house of Mr. Viney	74/1752		21 August 1874	Rev. R. Morton
3351	22 August 1874	Henry Gabriel Bullen Brant Mary Howell	Henry Gabriel Buller Braut Mary Ann Howell 💍 1874/10873	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	29 28	Christchurch Riccarton	2 months 6 weeks	In the St. Michaels Church Christchurch	74/1705		22 August 1874	Rev. H.J. Edwards
3352	24 August 1874	William Tidyman Henrietta Grimshaw	William Tidyman Henrietta Grimshaw 💍 1875/2084	Widower Spinster	Gunsmith	44 28	Christchurch Christchurch	6 weeks 3 weeks	In St Michaels Church Christchurch			24 August 1874	Rev. H.J. Edwards
3353	24 August 1874	George Jackson Margaret Summersides	George Jackson Margaret Somerville 💍 1874/10405	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor Servant	28 20	Christchurch Kaiapoi	4 years 2 months	Church Kaiapoi	1574	no person has authority to give consent	15 September 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3354	24 August 1874	James Brown Maria Williams	James Brown Maria Williams 💍 1874/10879	Widower Widow	Clerk	35 33	Christchurch do	8 months 3 months	Michaels Church	1708		14 September 1874	[UNCLEAR]
3355	26 August 1874	Robert Freshwater Elizabeth Becker	Robert Freshwater Elizabeth Becker 💍 1874/11392	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Servant	31 42	Christchurch do	7 weeks 3 days	In the house of Mr. Price	1804		26 August 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3356	28 August 1874	Joseph Richards Catherine Philips	Joseph Richards Catherine Philp 💍 1874/11395	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	24 25	Christchurch do	8 years 1 year	In the house of Mr. C. Fraser	1884		28 August 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3357	31 August 1874	Abraham de Beer Sophia Jacobs	Salomon de Beer Sophia Jacobs 💍 1874/10423	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	33 23	Christchurch Colombo, East Indies	19 days 4 weeks	In the house of Mr. Herman	1550		31 August 1874	Rev. B. Zachariah

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).