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 659

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Apr - Jun

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
132	5 April 1880	Thomas Moonan Jane Caddy	Thomas Noonan Elizabeth Jane Caddy 💍 1880/1851	Widower Spinster	Labourer Servant	39 29	Christetunch Christetunch	3 years 1 year	In the Registrars office	80/1118	5 April 1880	Registrar Marriages
133	6 April 1880	Frederick Wyatt Julia Cox		Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	24 21	Christetunch Christetunch	7 years 19 years	In St. Johns Church	80/994	6 April 1880	Rev H.C.M. Watson
134	6 April 1880	Thomas Morse Jane Andrews	Thomas Mase Elizabeth Jane Andrews 💍 1880/1708	Widower Widow	Musician	46 42	Sydenham Sydenham	5 years 4 months	In St. Saviours Church	80/1167	6 April 1880	Rev H.S. Cocks
135	8 April 1880	George Findlay Marcroft Elizabeth		Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	21 22	Christetunch Christetunch	10 months some years	In the house of Rev. J. White	80/1083	8 April 1880	Rev J. White
136	8 April 1880	William Good Sarah Francis	William Godso Sarah Francis 💍 1880/108	Widower Widow	Builder	57 50	Christetunch Christetunch	6 years 10 years	In St. Johns Church	80/1273	8 April 1880	Rev H.C.M. Watson
137	8 April 1880	James Bourne Casandra Jury	James Bowrin Cassandra Jury 💍 1880/1836	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	29 25	Christetunch Christetunch	1 year 5 months	In the house of Rev C. Fraser	80/1112	8 April 1880	Rev C. Fraser
138	10 April 1880	George Good Elizabeth Plasted	George Good Elizabeth Playstead 💍 1880/1837	Widower Widow	Miner Laundress	33 38	Christetunch Christetunch	18 months 18 months	In the House of Rev C. Fraser	80/1128	10 April 1880	Presbyterian
139	10 April 1880	David Yeaman Ann Gilroy	David Yeoman Maryanne Gilroy 💍 1880/1700	Widower Spinster	Labourer Servant	33 29	Bingoland Bingoland	3 years 3 months	In The Roman Catholic	80/1164	10 April 1880	Rev L. Ginaty

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).