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 577

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 30 September 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
3785	17 August 1875	Robert Allen Alice Lucy Bound	Robert Allen Alice Lucy Bound 💍 1875/2812	Widower Spinster	Labour Servant	37 25	Christchurch Christchurch	1 year 1 year	In the house of Rev C Fraser	75/3042		17 August 1875	Rev C Fraser
3786	19 August 1875	James Stewart Agnes Hepburn	James Stewart Agnes Hepburn 💍 1875/2813	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	33 23	Addington Addington	1 year 1 year	In the house of Rev C Fraser	75/3043		19 August 1875	Rev C Fraser
3787	23 August 1875	Edward Lovett Mary Spencer	Edward Lovett Mary Spencer 💍 1875/1706 Edward McEvoy Maria Spencer 💍 1875/1949	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Servant	30 22	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 5 days	Wesleyan Church	75/1461		23 August 1875	Rev J Buller
3788	23 August 1875	James Whitley Margaret McBride	James Whitley Margret McBride 💍 1875/2815 James Crossen Mary McBride 💍 1875/1324	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Servant	23 21	Christchurch Christchurch	11 months 6 months	In the house of Rev C Fraser	75/3045		23 August 1875	Rev C Fraser
3789	23 August 1875	John Miles Amelia Wickham	John Mills Amelia Wickham 💍 1875/2814	Bachelor Widow	Sailmaker	42 42	Christchurch Christchurch	7 days 7 days	In the house of Rev C Fraser	75/3044		23 August 1875	Rev C Fraser
3790	23 August 1875	John Huntrip Sarah Prudence Mundy	John Guntrip Sarah Prudence Mundy 💍 1875/2085	Widower Spinster	Sexton Servant	34 35	Christchurch Christchurch	2 years 6 months	St Lukes Church	75/2089		23 August 1875	Rev E A Lingard / Rev C Fraser
3791	25 August 1875	John Kilgour Margaret Sheereen	John Kilgour Margret Sheereen 💍 1875/2816	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor Servant	36 26	Christchurch Christchurch	4 weeks 2 weeks	In the house of the Revd C Fraser	75/3046		25 August 1875	Rev C Fraser
3792	26 August 1875	John Message Sarah Lee	John Message Sarah Bedford Lee 💍 1875/1962	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	25 22	Christchurch Christchurch	9 months 3 months	In the house of Mrs Schapers	75/2043		26 August 1875	Rev W I Habens
3793	27 August 1875	William Palmer Mary Jane Arthur	William Palmer Mary Jane Arthur 💍 1875/1724	Bachelor Spinster	Plasterer Servant	31 28	Addington Addington	3 months 3 months	Addington Church	75/1992		27 August 1875	Very Rev Dean Jacobs
3794	27 August 1875	John Goodman Clara Strain	John Goodman Clara Strange 💍 1875/1707	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	27 20	Christchurch Christchurch	17 years 5 years	In the house of Rev W Strange	75/1462	There is authority having been obtained	27 August 1875	Rev J Buller
3795	28 August 1875	Charles Conice Kah Ada Felty		Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer Servant	27 21	New Town New Town	18 months 5 days	Wesleyan Church	75/1463		28 August 1875	Rev J Buller

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).