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 649

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
57	18 February 1880	Thomas Walker Jane Isabella Connick	Thomas Francis Walker Jane Isabella McCormick 💍 1880/1201 Thomas Walker Mary Flynn 💍 1880/260	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Machinist	24 21	Christchurch Christchurch	5 years 5 years	In the house of Mr. Wm. Archbold	80/1668		18 February 1880	Rev. J. H. Bates
58	19 February 1880	Richard Hains Ann Williams	Richard Hainsworth Harriet Ann Williams 💍 1880/1207	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	28 17	Addington Addington	4 years 5 years	In the Registrars Office Christchurch	80/674		19 February 1880	Registrar Marriages Malleson
59	19 February 1880	Philip Boyce Fanny Morgan	Henry James Philip Boyce Fanny Morgan 💍 1880/954	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	23 16	Christchurch Papanui	13 years 16 years	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	80/1392	Elizabeth Jensen, Mother	19 February 1880	Rev. C. Fraser
60	20 February 1880	Michael Joseph Jane Fowler	Michael Joseph Daniel Sarah Jane Fowler 💍 1880/1208	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Servant	20 21	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	In the Registrars Office Christchurch	80/1671	Ann Tripperson, [UNCLEAR]	20 February 1880	Registrar Marriages Malleson
61	21 February 1880	Henry Paton Mary Ann Kinlay	Henry Paton Mary McKinlay 💍 1880/1202	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer Servant	29 24	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 4 years	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	80/669	Lawrence Gream Heel, [UNCLEAR]	21 February 1880	Rev. C. Fraser
62	21 February 1880	Arthur Frederick Ann Cotton		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	25 20	Sydenham Christchurch	18 months 4 years	In the House of Rev. J. Smalley Sydenham	80/333	Sampson Cotton, Father	21 February 1880	Rev. J. Smalley
63	23 February 1880	Henry Richards Elizabeth Kinsman	Henry Richards Elizabeth Kinsman 💍 1880/1014	Widower Widow	Warder Housekeeper	31 35	Lincoln Road Lincoln Road	2 years 10 years	In the Addington Church	80/326		23 February 1880	Rev. H. East
64	23 February 1880	Gustav Adolf Catherine Elizabeth Gruben		Bachelor Spinster	Ice maker	29 21	Christchurch Ycri Yopu	3 years 21 years	In the German Church Montreal Street	80/330		23 February 1880	Rev. P. Jacobsen

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).