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 665

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	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
180	10 May 1880	William Lang Isabella Burdon	William Langley Pope Annie Isabella Burdon 💍 1880/1435	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	29 30	Sydenham Sydenham	9 months 9 months	In the House of Mr. Heath	1090		10 May 1880	Rev. J. S. Smalley
181	11 May 1880	Frederick George Templeston Mary Webb	Frederick George Temperton Mercy Webb 💍 1880/1423	Bachelor Spinster	House Agent	21 19	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 19 years	St. Lukes Church	1102	William Webb, Father	11 May 1880	Rev. E. A. Lingard
182	12 May 1880	Thomas Bailey Anne Aston	Thomas Bailey Mary Ann Astor 💍 1880/1448	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Dressmaker	23 19	Christchurch Christchurch	15 years 7 years	In the Avonside Church	1019	George Aston, Father	12 May 1880	Rev. W. A. Pascoe
183	12 May 1880	Thomas Hapleton Christina Aitken	Tom Stapleton Christina Aitken 💍 1880/1449	Bachelor Spinster	Storeman Servant	28 17	Christchurch Christchurch	15 years 18 months	In the Avonside Church	1080	Isabella Aitken, Mother	12 May 1880	Rev. W. A. Pascoe
184	13 May 1880	Thomas Goodger Margant Stay		Bachelor Spinster	Coachman	28 27	Christchurch Christchurch	20 years 1 week	St. Michaels Church	1104		13 May 1880	Rev. E. G. Penny
185	13 May 1880	Richard Trist Mary Ellis	Richard Frist Searell Mary Ellis 💍 1880/1438	Bachelor Spinster	Professor of Music	28 20	Christchurch Christchurch	15 years 5 years	In the Wesleyan Church	1093	William Ellis, Father	13 May 1880	Rev. C. H. Price
186	13 May 1880	Henry Davy Florence Walford	Henry Davy Florence Walford 💍 1880/1628	Bachelor Spinster	Draper	29 25	Christchurch Christchurch	4 years 3 years	In the house of Rev. E. Haaser	1111		13 May 1880	Rev. E. Haaser
187	14 May 1880	James Donaldson Catherine Burk	James Donaldson Hutton Catherine Burk 💍 1880/1854	Widower Spinster	Servant	50 43	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	In the Registrars Office	1121		14 May 1880	Registrar Marriages

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).