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 648

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	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
49	12 February 1880	David Henry Cuff Kate Nogen	David Henry Cuff Kate Vogan 💍 1880/95	Bachelor Spinster	Cabman Servant	22 21	Christchurch Christchurch	6 years 3 years	St Johns Church	80/246	12 February 1880	Rev H.C.M. Watson
50	13 February 1880	Samuel Hebden Smith Alice Howard	Samuel Webster Smith Alice Howard 💍 1880/867	Bachelor Spinster	Printer	41 28	St Albans St Albans	2 years 12 years	The house of J.B Richardson St Albans	80/352	13 February 1880	Rev J.B Richardson
51	16 February 1880	Alfred Derbidge Marian Elizabeth Youde	Alfred Derbidge Margaret Elizabeth Wishart 💍 1880/1019	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 21	Rangiora Christchurch	5 years 3 weeks	St Johns Church Rangiora	80/308	16 February 1880	The Archdn Dudley
52	16 February 1880	James Henry Cain Susan Hielson	James Henry Cain Susan Wilson 💍 1880/976	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	31 30	Lyttleton Christchurch	5 years 1 week	In the house of Mr Fraser Durham Street	80/390	16 February 1880	Rev C. Fraser
53	16 February 1880	James Gover Annie Downe	James Overend Annie Powell 💍 1880/1206 James Smart Annie Milner 💍 1880/513 James O'Brien Annie Foohey 💍 1880/372	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	25 21	Woolston Woolston	20 years 4 months	In the Registrars Office	80/433 6/3	16 February 1880	J Makerson Registrar Marriages
54	16 February 1880	Cecil Evan Ellen Mary		Newspaper Proprietor Spinster		40 28	Christchurch Christchurch	14 days 14 days	In Cobbs Hotel	80/414	16 February 1880	Rev W.R. Mulgan
55	17 February 1880	Alfred Herman Nordstrom Annie Idefolo Pics	Alfred Herman Nardstrom Annie Kipple 💍 1880/953	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Dressmaker	23 25	Addington Addington	3 weeks 3 weeks	In the House of Rev C. Fraser	80/391	17 February 1880	Rev C. Fraser
56	17 February 1880	Josiah Alfred Willey Alice Amey	Josiah Alfred Willey Amelia Ann Amey 💍 1880/855	Widower Widow	Coachmaker Housekeeper	50 40	St Albans Sydenham	14 years 7 years	In the Merivale Church	80/344	17 February 1880	Rev. J. Flavell

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).