Intentions to Marry, 1880

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840392, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 644

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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
17	17 January 1880	Michael Hauley Bridget McGovern	Michael Hanley Bridget McGovern 💍 1880/1661	Bachelor Spinster	Carrier Servant	34 24	Springfield Road Papanui	4 Year 6 Months	In the Roman Catholic Church	80/114		19 January 1880	Rev L. Ginaty
18	17 January 1880	Hugh McClay Jessie Adie	Hugh McKay Jessie Adie 💍 1880/955	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	28 23	Christchurch Christchurch	5 Years 1 Year	In the house of Rev C Fraser	80/398		19 January 1880	Rev C Fraser
19	19 January 1880	John Henry Pearce Margaret Difford	John Henry Pearce Margaret Dipper 💍 1880/908	Bachelor Widow	Mariner	34 27	Heathcote Heathcote	5 Months 6 Months	In St Michaels Church	80/422		20 January 1880	Rev E.G. Penny
20	20 January 1880	Robert Littlejohn Helen Bateman	Robert Littlecott Hester Bateman 💍 1880/902	Bachelor Spinster	Law Clerk Governess	35 30	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 14 days	In the Trinity Church	80/407		20 January 1880	Rev A. Reid
21	21 January 1880	George Henry Elizabeth Voss	George Henry Elizabeth Voss 💍 1880/913	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	27 21	Christchurch Christchurch	14 Months 1 week	In the house of Mr Clark	80/408		21 January 1880	Rev a. Reid
22	22 January 1880	Patrick Foley Mary Holmes		Widower Spinster	Hatter Servant	39 28	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 1 Year	In The Registrars Office	80/439		23 January 1880	Markeson Registrar Marriages
23	23 January 1880	Alfred John Hanny Phair	Alfred John Goodrick Goslin Fanny Phair 💍 1880/991	Bachelor Spinster	Waiter	21 21	Christchurch Christchurch	2 years 5 Years	In the house of Mr Glen	80/419	Goodrich Gosling	23 January 1880	Rev C. Fraser
24	24 January 1880	James Patrick Quinn Jane Marshall	James Patrick Quinn Mary Jane Marshall 💍 1880/952	Bachelor Spinster	Machinist Servant	28 22	Christchurch Christchurch	2 years 9 Months	In the house of Rev C. Fraser	80/382		26 January 1880	Rev C. Fraser

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

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).