Intentions to Marry, 1875

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840387, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 16 2025.

This register is quite fragile and some of the pages are damaged or even missing.

Page 588

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 December 1875

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
3905	13 December 1875	John Hausmann Johanna Berziensky	Johann Hausmann Johanna Berziensky 💍 1875/2390	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	26 22	Christchurch Christchurch	11 months 3 years	In the German Church, Christchurch	75/2348		13 December 1875	Rev. L. Lohr
3906	13 December 1875	Everard Stapleton Elizabeth Mary Brooks	Edward Stapleton Elizabeth Mary Bwoks 💍 1875/3249	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	20 18	Christchurch Christchurch	11 years 17 years	In the house of Mr. Stapleton	75/3161	Thomas Stapleton, Father of groom; Elizabeth Brooks, Mother of bride	13 December 1875	Rev. C. Roper
3907	13 December 1875	Charles Cook Kate Crowley	Charles Cook Kate Crowley 💍 1875/2731	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster	35 20	Christchurch Lyttelton	12 years 7 years	In St. Luke's Church	75/3010	Frederick Crowley, Father of bride	13 December 1875	Rev. P. A. Lingard
3908	14 December 1875	John Sinclair Kate Connolly	John Sinclair Kate Connolly 💍 1875/2300	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Servant	38 25	Christchurch Christchurch	8 years 4 weeks	In St. Michael's Church	75/2458		14 December 1875	Rev. St. J. Edwards
3909	14 December 1875	William John Cole Charlotte Hobbs	William John Cole Charlotte Jane Hobbs 💍 1875/2734	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	29 19	Christchurch Christchurch	15 months 19 years	In the Church of St. Luke	75/3012	William Hobbs, Father of bride	14 December 1875	Rev. P. A. Lingard
3910	15 December 1875	Joseph Swindell Mary Capes	Joseph Swindell Mary Gapes 💍 1875/2733	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	25 23	Christchurch Christchurch	10 years 12 years	In St. Luke's Church	75/3011		15 December 1875	Rev. P. A. Lingard
3911	18 December 1875	John Lord Sarah Rose	John Lord Sarah Rose 💍 1876/118	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet Maker Servant	24 21	Waddington Waddington	9 months 2 weeks	In the Free Methodist Chapel, St. Asaph St.	75/3131		18 December 1875	Rev. S. Macfarlane
3912	20 December 1875	Ferguson Nelson Rebecca Robinson	James Ferguson Nelson Rebecca Robinson 💍 1875/2517	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	21 18	Christchurch Christchurch	2 years 2 years	In the Templeton Church	75/2684	John Robinson, Father of bride	20 December 1875	Rev. R. Jackson
3913	20 December 1875	Edward Ledgers Annie Suffry	Edward Odgers Annie Duffy 💍 1875/3041	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor Servant	28 17	Kowai Pass Kowai Pass	8 years 13 years	In the house of Rev. C. Fraser	75/3162	Catherine Suffry, Mother of bride	20 December 1875	Rev. C. Fraser
3914	20 December 1875	Thomas Ashworth Mary Ann Andrews	Thomas Ashworth Mary Ann Andrews 💍 1875/2386	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Laundress	31 22	Christchurch Christchurch	13 years 12 years	In the house of Mr. Andrews	75/2345		20 December 1875	Rev. R. Morton
3915	22 December 1875	Edward Hammond Susannah Faiers	Edward Hammond Susanna Faiers 💍 1875/2301	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	22 21	Christchurch Christchurch	18 months 3 weeks	In the Church of St. Michael	75/2459		22 December 1875	Rev. H. J. Edwards

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).