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 702

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
441	13 December 1880	Daniel Dannie Polly Penrose	David Pankhurst Polly Penrose 💍 1880/674	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher Servant	47 23	Shirley Addington	18 months 1 year	St Marys Church Christchurch	12494		13 December 1880	Rev H. East
442	13 December 1880	Leslie Theobald Christiana Varcoe	Leslie Theobald Washer Christina Varcoe 💍 1880/178	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner Washer & Ironer	28 22	Sydenham Bingland	2 years 6 months	St Michaels Church Christchurch	87/12643		13 December 1880	Rev T. R. Penny
443	14 December 1880	Thomas Kershaw Sarah Norris	Thomas Kershaw Sarah Norris 💍 1880/177	Bachelor Spinster	Moulder Servant	24 21	Sydenham Bingland	10 years 4 years	St Michaels Church England	80/12642		14 December 1880	Rev T. R. Penny
444	14 December 1880	James Campbell Mary Ann Bennetts	James Campbell Mary Ann Bennetts 💍 1880/683	Bachelor Spinster	Contractor Governess	27 25	Christchurch St Albans	4 years 7 years	In the House of Rev J. S. Richards	80/12803		14 December 1880	Rev J. S. Richards
445	15 December 1880	Alexander Rhind Margaret McAlpine	Alexander Rhind Margaret McAlpine 💍 1880/100	Bachelor Spinster	Miller Dressmaker	22 21	River Styx Christchurch	2 years 16 years	In the House of Mr. Sefton Harry Road	80/12719		15 December 1880	Rev J. H. Bates
446	17 December 1880	William Lorymer Matilda Webb	William Norgate Helen Matilda Webb 💍 1880/97	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	23 17	Christchurch Christchurch	3 weeks 3 weeks	St Lukes Church Christchurch	80/12718	William Webb father	17 December 1880	Rev E. A. Lingard
447	17 December 1880	Henry Brown Frances Palmer	Henry Brown Frances Palmer 💍 1880/99	Bachelor Spinster	Grocer	26 21	Christchurch Christchurch	16 years 7 years	St Lukes Church Christchurch	80/12718		17 December 1880	Rev E. A. Lingard
448	17 December 1880	Thomas Edric Fisher Somerville	Thomas Edwin Fisher Summer Somerville 💍 1881/1973	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	25 21	Christchurch Christchurch	20 years 4 years	In the House of Rev C. Fraser Tuam Street	81/12809		17 December 1880	Rev C. Fraser

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).