Intentions to Marry, 1878

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840390, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, March 5 2025

Page 684

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 March 1878

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
4808	15 January 1878	Thomas Liston Bridget O'Connell	Thomas Liston Bridget O'Connell 💍 1878/494	Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper	33 26	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 6 years	Roman Catholic Church Flat	78/475		15 January 1878	Rev L. Ginaty
4809	15 January 1878	Edwin James Paul Florence Elizabeth Donas	Edwin James Paul Florence Elizabeth Dones 💍 1878/562	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	29 20	Christchurch Christchurch	4 years 14 years	St Johns Church	78/536	Clara Lee Harris, Mother	15 January 1878	Rev H. C. M. Watson
4810	15 January 1878	Edward Colleson Georgina Cowan	Edward Collison Georgina Cowan 💍 1878/77	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	25 18	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	St Lukes Church	[illegible]	Hugh Kingsley Kennedy Cowan, Father	15 January 1878	Rev W. A. Pascoe
4811	15 January 1878	Thomas Mylchreest Mary Ann Long	Thomas Myhill Mary Ann Lang 💍 1878/578 Thomas Marcroft Mary Ann Cutler 💍 1879/127	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	31 27	Opawa Bingsland	7 years 1 month	Baptist Chapel	78/559		15 January 1878	Rev C. Dallaston
4812	15 January 1878	John Crase Emma Louisa Papprill	John Orme Emma Louisa Papprill 💍 1878/516	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Servant	26 19	Christchurch Christchurch	4 years 1 year	the house of Mr Witton, Durham Street	78/497	Joseph William Papprill, Father	15 January 1878	Rev C. Fraser
4813	16 January 1878	Isaac Emanuel Cotterill Roseannah [illegible]		Widower Widow	Labourer Servant	37 27	Waltham Addington	1 year 12 years	the Lincoln Church	78/528		16 January 1878	Rev H. Stocker
4814	16 January 1878	Lucien Henry Emily Louisa Woolfe	Lucien Henry Emily Louise Woolfe 💍 1878/78	Bachelor [illegible]	Storekeeper [illegible]	26 20	Christchurch Christchurch	10 days 6 days	St Lukes Church	78/564	William Woolfe, Father	16 January 1878	Rev W. A. Pascoe
4815	16 January 1878	William Large Jane Langton	William Large Jane Langston 💍 1878/558	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	24 26	Christchurch Christchurch	4 years 3 years	the house of the [illegible]	78/507	Anne Sutton, [illegible]	16 January 1878	Rev C. Fraser
4816	16 January 1878	John Barrett Lavinia Griffith	John Barrett Lavinia Gribbin 💍 1878/520	Bachelor Spinster	Hairdresser Servant	26 20	Christchurch Christchurch	10 years 4 months	St Lukes Church	78/587	Alice Griffith, Mother	16 January 1878	Rev C. Fraser
4817	17 January 1878	Edward Back Martha Hill	Edward Beck Martha Hill 💍 1878/584	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Servant	25 20	Christchurch Christchurch	2 weeks 3 days	Registrar's Office, Christchurch	78/543	there is a person having authority to give consent	17 January 1878	Registrar of Marriages, J. Mankerson
4818	17 January 1878	Charles Willett Elizabeth Reynolds	Charles Willet Elizabeth Reynolds 💍 1878/575	Widower Spinster	Bricklayer Dressmaker	32 30	Newtown Newtown	1 year 32 years	the Free Methodist Church, St Asaph Street	78/556		17 January 1878	Rev S. Macfarlane

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).