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 669

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
212	26 May 1880	James Walter Prebble Christina White	James Walter Prebble Christina White 💍 1880/1611	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Governess	22 22	Prebbleton Prebbleton	22 years 18 months	In the house of Rev. C. Fraser	771/47		26 May 1880	Rev. C. Fraser, Presbyterian
213	26 May 1880	Robert Wilson Janet Smith	Robert Wilson Janet Smith 💍 1880/1632	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Machinist	23 21	Christchurch Cranmer Street	7 years 5 years	In the house of Rev. C. Fraser	80/1145		26 May 1880	Rev. C. Fraser, Presbyterian
214	26 May 1880	Richard Woodhouse Sarah Ann Schmidt	Richard Monkhouse Roger Tillstone Sarah Ann Schmidt 💍 1880/1633	Bachelor Widow	Master Mariner	30 28	Christchurch Christchurch Cranmer Street	6 weeks 16 years	In the house of Rev. C. Fraser	80/1146		26 May 1880	Rev. C. Fraser, Presbyterian
215	27 May 1880	Thomas Cashel Frances Hearty	Thomas Coppins Frances Kearney 💍 1880/1848 Thomas Dawsett Frances Hordern 💍 1881/627	Bachelor Spinster	Saddler	40 31	Christchurch Christchurch	1 year 6 months	St. Paul's Cashel Street	80/1145		27 May 1880	Rev. J. Elmslie, Presbyterian
216	28 May 1880	James Mundy Ellen Marsden	James Mundy Ellen Marsden 💍 1880/709	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Servant	20 18	Christchurch Christchurch	5 years 3 years	In the Registrars Office	80/1123	Mary Ann Wilkinson, mother of [bride?], John Marsden, father of [bride?]	28 May 1880	Registrar Marriages, J. Paul Breson
217	28 May 1880	Frederick William Jones Annie Rudd	Frederick William Jones Annie Rudd 💍 1880/1832	Widower Spinster	Labourer Servant	44 32	Christchurch Christchurch	13 years 4 years	In the Registrars Office	80/1122		28 May 1880	Registrar Marriages, J. Paul Breson
218	29 May 1880	Gilbert Walter Coventry Hood Clarke Milligan	Gilbert Walter Coventry Margaret Hood Clark Milligan 💍 1880/1612	Bachelor Spinster	Station Master	43 27	Christchurch Christchurch	10 months 1 week	In the house of Rev. C. Fraser	80/1148		29 May 1880	Rev. C. Fraser, Presbyterian
219	29 May 1880	John Thomas Callaghan Louisa Hornsby	John Thomas Gallagher Emily Louisa Thompson 💍 1880/1605	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	32 17	Prebbleton Prebbleton	11 years 17 years	In the Prebbleton Church	80/1142	George Hornsby, father	29 May 1880	Rev. C.E. Wright, Church of England

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).