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 683

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
317	9 August 1880	Henry Albert Swain Breckon Elizabeth Rogers	Henry Albert Smart Elizabeth Bougen 💍 1880/2345	Bachelor Spinster	Blacksmith	23 22	Christchurch Christchurch	5 years 4 Years	St Michaels Church	812/175		9 August 1880	Rev. E.G. Penny
318	9 August 1880	Joseph William Breckon Mayhew Freeman		Bachelor Spinster	School Master	22 23	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 5 days	In the Registrars Office	801/295		9 August 1880	Registrar Marriages E Maidman
319	12 August 1880	William Bethel Gertrude Wandey	William Bethell Sharp Gertrude Wansey 💍 1880/2357	Bachelor Spinster	Commercial Traveller	30 22	Avonside Avonside	1 year 1 year	In the Avonside Church	80/1203		12 August 1880	Rev W.A Pasecoe
320	14 August 1880	William Michael Bournes Margaret Gallagher	William Michael Downes Margaret Gallagher 💍 1880/2420	Bachelor Spinster		35 28	Christchurch Christchurch	9 days 3 days	In the Roman Catholic Church	80/12043		14 August 1880	Revd. Ginaty
321	16 August 1880	David Widford Ann Allard		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 21	Christchurch Christchurch	6 years 21 years	In St Lukes Church	80/12035		16 August 1880	Rev G Langham
322	16 August 1880	Robert Thompson Margant Docherty	Robert Thompson Margaret Doherty 💍 1880/2334	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	24 22	Vic Queens Valley Flaxton	1 year 6 months	In the Roman Catholic Church	80/12080		16 August 1880	Rev U. Brisfield
323	17 August 1880	John Stack Kate Bowler	John Stack Kate Bowler 💍 1880/2329	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor Servant	30 22	Christchurch Christchurch	6 days 3 days	In the Registrars Office	81/1296		17 August 1880	Registrar Marriages J Moulison
324	17 August 1880	Francis Gower Mary Ann Cattwood	Francis Gower Mary Ann Attwood 💍 1880/170	Bachelor Spinster	Hairdresser	20 23	Christchurch Christchurch	23 years 23 years	St Johns Church	81/1238	J. Hewperson having Authority to Consent	17 August 1880	Rev H.C.M. Watson

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).