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 597

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
3431	6 November 1874	William Laing Elizabeth Du Plain	William Laing Elizabeth Dyslain 💍 1874/12760	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter Dressmaker	36 38	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 6 years	In the house of Rev. C. Fraser Tuam Street	74/2357		24 November 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3432	7 November 1874	William Mathias Harriet Harris Beeth	Vincent William Mathias Harriet Harris Brett 💍 1874/13846	Bachelor Spinster	Dairy Farmer	25 24	Christchurch Courtenay	3 days 9 years	In the Church of St. Luke	2731		9 November 1874	Rev. J. Stack
3433	7 November 1874	Thomas Buxton Ellen Macartney	Thomas Goulborn Ellen Moore 💍 1874/8218	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	37 30	Christchurch Do	3 days 4 years	In the Church of St. Peter	1952		6 November 1874	Rev. A.F. Douglas
3434	7 November 1874	Thomas Nelson Mary Macdonald	Thomas Nelson Mary McDonald 💍 1874/11698	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	29 22	Christchurch Do	6 months 4 months	In the Church of Rev. C. Fraser	1989		7 November 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3435	7 November 1874	David Keen Annie Wilcox	David Kaler Annie Wilcox 💍 1874/11614	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	30 25	Christchurch Do	5 months 5 months	In the Wesleyan Church	1959		9 November 1874	Rev. J. Butler
3436	10 November 1874	Per Jonsson Nordstrand Olena Anderson	Per Fender Nordstrom Olena Anderson 💍 1874/11557	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith Servant	30 18	Addington Addington	3 months 3 months	In the German Church Christchurch	74/1939	No person having authority to give consent	19 November 1874	Rev. P. L. Lohr
3437	7 November 1874	Alfred Gaisford Florence Elizabeth Piper	Alfred Gainsford Florence Elizabeth Piper 💍 1874/13858	Bachelor Spinster	Barman Servant	24 21	Christchurch Do	1 day 1 day	In St. Luke's Church	2735		10 November 1874	Rev. [UNCLEAR]
3438	7 November 1874	John Ingram Mary Ann Dixon	John Ingram Mary Ann McEwan 💍 1874/11704	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant	25 25	Oxford Christchurch	2 years 5 years	In the Church of Oxford	1991		11 November 1874	Rev. C. Fraser
3439	7 November 1874	Edwin Smith Jane Armstrong	Edwin Smith Jane Armstrong 💍 1874/11572	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Cook	28 21	Christchurch Do	3 years 3 years	In the Church of St. Michael	1945		11 November 1874	Rev. C. Green
3440	7 November 1874	Henry Simmons Mary Fitzmaurice	Henry Simmons Mary Fursman Andrews 💍 1874/11548	Bachelor Widow	Carpenter	50 31	Woolston Christchurch	5 years 15 months	In the Baptist Chapel	1936		11 November 1874	Rev. R. Hinton
3441	7 November 1874	Andrew Jolly Sarah Kitch	Andrew Tully Sarah Kinch 💍 1874/11758	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	35 28	Fernside Christchurch	2 years 1 year	In the Roman Catholic Church	2009		14 November 1874	Rev. J. J. Belliard

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).