Intentions to Marry, 1877

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840389, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, April 16 2025

Page 631

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 December 1877 Registrar Markerson

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
4754	4 December 1877	Michael John Craddocks [illegible]	Bachelor [illegible]	Coachbuilder [illegible]	21 [illegible]	Christchurch [illegible]	17 years [illegible]	Michael's Church	77/2990		4 December 1877	Rev. L.S. Penny
4755	4 December 1877	Elizabeth Ann Bryan [illegible]	Spinster [illegible]	Servant [illegible]	22 [illegible]	Christchurch [illegible]	9 years [illegible]	Christchurch	77/2582		4 December 1877	Rev. C. Fraser
4755	4 December 1877	John Morgan	Bachelor	Hotelkeeper	23	Christchurch	19 years	In the house of Mr. Wilson		Hugh Wilson, father
4756	4 December 1877	Ellen Wilson	Spinster	Servant	18	Christchurch	3 years	Foralister Christchurch			4 December 1877	Rev. L. Kinaty
4756	4 December 1877	Alexander Macdonald	Bachelor	Sergeant of Police	38	Christchurch	3 days	In the Roman Catholic Church	77/303
4757	4 December 1877	Angelina Clara	Spinster		26	Lincoln Road	3 days	Christchurch
4758	5 December 1877	Frederick Peter Brown	Bachelor	Labourer	32	Christchurch	7 years	Michael's Church	77/2984		5 December 1877	R. & G. Penny
4758	5 December 1877	Mary Louisa Edwards Paul	Widow	Servant	38	Christchurch	7 years	Christchurch	77/2603		5 December 1877	Registrar of Marriage, Markenson
4759	5 December 1877	Henry Richter	Bachelor	Labourer	31	Halswell	11 months	In the Registrar's Office
4759	6 December 1877	Annie Moore	Spinster	Servant	32	Christchurch	1 month	Christchurch	77/2581		6 December 1877	Rev. C. Fraser
4760	6 December 1877	Arthur Jones	Bachelor	Butcher	22	Christchurch	1 month	In the house of Rev. Fraser
4760	7 December 1877	Emily Jane White	Spinster	Dressmaker	23	Christchurch	1 year	Liaw Street	77/2632	Mary Blair, mother	7 December 1877	Rev. H. Stocker
4761	7 December 1877	Charles Rowe	Bachelor	Labourer	21	Lincoln	2 years	In the Lincoln Church
4761	7 December 1877	Amy Blair	Spinster		19	Lincoln	17 years	Church
4761	7 December 1877	Frederick Phillipps	Bachelor	Carpenter	28	Waltham	3 months	In St. Michael's Church	77/2991		7 December 1877	R. S. Penny
4762	7 December 1877	Elizabeth McCawn	Spinster	Servant	24	Addington	4 years	Christchurch
4762	8 December 1877	Henry Smith Legg	Bachelor	Clerk	28	Christchurch	9 months	In St. Michael's Church	77/2989		8 December 1877	Rev. E. G. Penny
4763	8 December 1877	Blanche Wearing	Spinster		23	Christchurch		Karalpoi
4763	11 December 1877	Abraham Solomon Leoryk	Bachelor	Tobacconist	25	Christchurch	5 days	In the Jewish Synagogue	77/2621	Henriette Schwarts, mother	11 December 1877	Rev. I. Zachriala
4764	11 December 1877	Eliza Schwartz	Spinster		20	Christchurch	12 years	Christchurch
4764	11 December 1877	Archibald McRae	Bachelor	Blacksmith	28	Malvern	11 months	In St. Paul's Malvern Church	77/2955			Rev. I. Elmslie
	11 December 1877	Frances Inatilda	Spinster		23	Christchurch	2 years	Cashel Street
		Fanny Lyford	Spinster

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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).