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 695

District of Christchurch Quarter ending Oct - Dec

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
385	19 October 1880	Frank Stavers Whithair Kate Jackson	Frank Steven William Kate Jackson 💍 1880/686	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	20 21	Riccarton Kingsland	4 years 9 months	In the Parsonage Grounds	80/739	Margaret Elizabeth Whithair, mother	19 October 1880	Rev. W. A. Pascoe
386	23 October 1880	William Treglown Elizabeth Walls	William Treglown Thomas Elizabeth Walls 💍 1880/721	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor Servant	23 23	Sydenham Sydenham	2 years 5 years	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	80/3128		23 October 1880	Rev. C. Fraser
387	23 October 1880	Henry Cotterill Nancy Gilchrist Stokes	Henry Cotterill Nancy Elizabeth Stokes 💍 1880/119	Bachelor Spinster	Barrister	25 26	Christchurch Christchurch	25 years 3 years	In U. Rules Church	80/124/144		23 October 1880	Rev. E. A. Lingard
388	25 October 1880	James Stewart Annie Milner	James Smart Annie Milner 💍 1880/513	Widower Spinster	Potter Housekeeper	34 29	Sydenham Christchurch	6 months 5 years	In the House of Mr. Lloyd	80/13066		25 October 1880	Rev. T. R. Carrier
389	27 October 1880	Henry Augustus Bamfied Susannah Dairs		Bachelor Spinster	Barrister	36 37	Dunedin Dunedin	16 years	In St. Marks Green Island	Dunedin 12497		27 October 1880	Rev. J. L. Stanley
390	28 October 1880	Samuel Noonan Maria Hewens	Samuel Vogan Maria Stephens 💍 1880/723 Samuel Hocking Maria Thomas 💍 1880/1444	Bachelor Widow	Labourer	29 31	Sydenham Sydenham	8 months 5 years	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	80/3129		28 October 1880	Rev. C. Fraser
391	29 October 1880	Archibald McGregor Elizabeth Dow	Archibald McGregor Elizabeth Dow 💍 1880/616	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	30 24	Burnham Burnham	18 years 3 days	In the House of Archibald McGregor	80/3183		29 October 1880	Rev. J. W. Cree
392	29 October 1880	Walter John Agnes James	Walter John Hoddinott Agnes James 💍 1880/692	Bachelor Spinster	Railway Servant	23 17	Sydenham Sydenham	5 years 17 years	In the Wesleyan Church Colombo Road	80/266/392	William James, father	29 October 1880	Rev. J. S. Hishworth

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).