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 672

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
236	12 June 1880	Thomas Under-wood Isabella Howler	Thomas Underwood Isabella Taylor 💍 1880/1619	Bachelor Spinster	Hotel Keeper Servant	22 20	Sydenham Sydenham	4 years 1 month	In the house of Mr. John Gandish Pound Road	80/11/3	Mr. John Gandish having authority to consent	12 June 1880	Rev. C. Fraser Presbyterian
237	12 June 1880	William Henry Onehard Fanny Louise Baugh	William Henry Orchard Rose Fanny Louisa Baugh 💍 1880/1618	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	28 16	Christchurch Christchurch	15 months 16 years	In the house of Mrs C. Fraser Cashel Street	80/11/7	William Himas Baugh Father	12 June 1880	Rev. C. Fraser Presbyterian
238	14 June 1880	John Gollery Mary Leeney	John Colleary Mary Leeney 💍 1880/1697	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	35 25	Christchurch Christchurch	4 months 1 year	In the Roman Catholic Church	80/11/80		14 June 1880	Rev. L. Ginaty Roman Catholic
239	14 June 1880	Joseph Hilson Martha Gray	Joseph Wilson Martha Craig 💍 1880/1440 Joseph Johnston Martha Farrer 💍 1880/2324	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Servant	27 27	Christchurch Christchurch	1 year 2 weeks	In the house, Kaiapoi Mr Jones	80/11/95		14 June 1880	Rev. G. Reid Wesleyan
240	15 June 1880	Hennick Schaffer Marie Ridder	Henrick Schaffer Marie Ridder 💍 1880/1833	Widower Spinster	Farmer Servant	45 20	Lincoln Waipawa	14 years 2 months	In the Registrars Office	80/11/24	Johnson Ridder Father	15 June 1880	Registrar Marriages D Malleson
241	16 June 1880	William Butter Hannah De La Cour		Bachelor Spinster	Clicker Machinist	24 18	Christchurch Christchurch	18 months 6 years	In the house of Mr. Afferman Richfield Street	80/11/5	Mr. [UNCLEAR] having authority to consent	16 June 1880	Rev. C. Fraser Presbyterian
242	18 June 1880	Joseph Newsome Elinabith Heard		Bachelor Spinster	Jailor	21 18	Christchurch Sydenham	21 years 15 years	St. Marys Church		George Heard Father	18 June 1880	Rev. H. East Church of England
243	18 June 1880	James Redmond Alice Payne	James Redmond Alice Behan 💍 1880/1698	Bachelor Spinster	Smith Servant	29 30	Christchurch Christchurch	6 months 6 months	In the Roman Catholic Church	80/11		18 June 1880	Rev. L. Ginaty Roman Catholic

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).