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 699

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
417	17 November 1880	Charles Henry Summering Hill Mary Payne		Bachelor Spinster	Plumber Dressmaker	22 19	Christchurch Christchurch	6 days 2 months	In St Paul's, Dunedin	12/634	Cashel Payne, mother	17 November 1880	Rev. J. Elmslie
418	18 November 1880	George James Gaylin Louisa Manning	George James Taylor Louisa Manning 💍 1880/197	Bachelor Spinster	Horsemen Nurse	39 27	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 1 year	In the Congregational Church, Manchester Street	8/968		18 November 1880	Rev. H. Williams
419	19 November 1880	Lawrence Mahon Mary Nevins	Laurence Mahon Mary Nevin 💍 1880/675	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	45 35	Christchurch Christchurch	1 year 3 days	In the Roman Catholic Church	8/965		19 November 1880	Rev. J. C. Chervier
420	19 November 1880	Daniel Taffard Mary Snelson		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Servant	25 24	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	8/134		19 November 1880	Rev. C. Fraser
421	19 November 1880	Stephen Harris Elizabeth Palmer	Drape Harris Elizabeth Palmer 💍 1880/673	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 19	Lincoln Road Lincoln Road	17 Years 2 Years	In the Presbyterian Church	8/969	Elizabeth Palmer, mother	19 November 1880	Rev. Thos. Flavell
422	20 November 1880	Thornton Reinhardt Catherine Rohrbach	Theodor Reinholt Preuss Catharine Rohrbach 💍 1880/672	Bachelor Widow	Grocer	27 36	Christchurch Christchurch	10 months 8 years	In the German Church	8/692		20 November 1880	Rev. P. F. J. Reutjes
423	22 November 1880	John Christopher Cuff Ellen Nagle	John Christopher Cuff Ellen Nugent 💍 1880/217	Bachelor Spinster	Dealer Servant	31 25	Christchurch Christchurch	8 months 4 years	In St. John's Church	12/439		22 November 1880	Rev. H. C. M. Watson
424	22 November 1880	Joseph Borges Harriet Hewitt	Joseph Bongen Harriett Hewitt 💍 1880/175	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	26 24	Christchurch Christchurch	5 years 4 years	In St. Michaels Church	12/640		22 November 1880	Rev. R. G. Penney

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).