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 583

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
3850	25 October 1875	Charles Lawson Hannah Whittington	Charles Lawson Hannah Whittington 💍 1875/2745	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	32 22	Woolston Do	7 years 12 years	In the Opawa Church	75/2360		26 October 1875	G. J. Cholmondeley
3851	26 October 1875	Thomas Arkieson Clara Haig	Thomas Adkisson Gates Clara Ward 💍 1875/2277	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster	22 21	Christchurch Do	5 years 5 years	St. Michael's Church Christchurch	75/2457		26 October 1875	Rev. H. J. Edwards
3852	26 October 1875	Alfred Isaac Twining Marion Simcock	Alfred James Twinning Marion Sinnock 💍 1875/2288	Bachelor Spinster	Tugman	23 24	Christchurch Do	7 months 15 years	St. Michael's Church Christchurch	75/2452		26 October 1875	Rev. H. J. Edwards
3853	26 October 1875	William Abel Rhina Matilda Jam Fulton	William Abel Robina Matilda Jane Fenton 💍 1875/3030	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	28 20	Christchurch Do	4 years 13 years	In the Presbyterian Church	75/3157	Robert Fulton, Father	26 October 1875	Rev. C. Fraser
3854	26 October 1875	William Pearce Elizabeth Kelley	William Pearce Elizabeth Kelly 💍 1875/2726	Widower Widow	Inspector of Nuisances	44 36	Christchurch Do	13 years 2 years	In the Church of St. Luke	75/3005		26 October 1875	Rev. R. A. Lingard
3855	27 October 1875	John W. Gorman Elizabeth Boswell	John McGorman Elizabeth Snoswell 💍 1875/2380 John Gordon Elizabeth Allan 💍 1875/1377 John Tifford Elizabeth Hill 💍 1875/2952	Bachelor Spinster	Detective	35 19	Lyttelton Christchurch	18 months 6 months	Lyttelton	75/2334	Rev. J. Berry, person having authority to consent	27 October 1875	Rev. J. Berry
3856	28 October 1875	Basil Blacklock Eliza Baxter	David Blacklock Carruthers Eliza Baxter 💍 1875/3047	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 27	Christchurch Do	3 days 3 days	In the house of Mr. Carruthers	75/3145		28 October 1875	Rev. C. Fraser
3857	29 October 1875	Alfred Restieaux Emily Barnett	Alfred Restieaux Emily Barnett 💍 1875/3028	Bachelor Spinster	Porter	26 21	Christchurch Do	14 years 2 years	In the Presbyterian Church	75/3149		29 October 1875	Rev. C. Fraser
3858	30 October 1875	James Connor Lena Wilson	James Leitch Letitia Wilson 💍 1876/647	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	35 27	Christchurch Do	3 days 3 days	In the Roman Catholic Church	75/2652		30 October 1875	Rev. J. P. Chareype
3859	30 October 1875	Thomas Bayman Caroline Forrest	Thomas Baynon Caroline Forrest 💍 1875/2530	Bachelor Spinster	Groom Servant	22 18	Christchurch Do	7 weeks 6 weeks	In the House of Mr. Nixon	75/2740	There is no person having authority to consent	30 October 1875	Rev. B. I. Westbrooke
3860	1 November 1875	William Cooper Annie Wylie	William Cooper Annie Wylie 💍 1875/3048	Bachelor Spinster	Jeweller Servant	24 21	Christchurch Do	1 year 15 months	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	75/3146		1 November 1875	Rev. C. Fraser

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).