Intentions to Marry, 1882

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840394, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, April 16 2025

Page 701

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 March 1882 Registrar J.J. Maukerson

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
13	13 January 1882	Horatio Cooper Ross & Mary		Bachelor	Laborer	25	Christchurch	3 years	Roman Catholic Church	82/1555		11 January 1882	Rev. L. Guinty
14	14 January 1882	William Henry Baxter Clemow & Elizabeth Hartley		Bachelor Spinster	Carrier Dressmaker	27 24	Sydenham Sydenham	2 years 14 days	St. Michael's Church	82/1532		11 January 1882	Rev. W. Harper
15	15 January 1882	Hugh Hocking Raddow & Elizabeth		Bachelor	Master Mariner	28	Papanui	4 days	Papanui Church	82/1527		13 January 1882	Rev. F. G. Brittan
16	16 January 1882	Charles Frederick Amos Jackson		Bachelor Spinster	Station Holder	27 21	Christchurch Papanui	27 years 21 years	In the Avon Side Church	82/1481		16 January 1882	Rev. W. A. Pascoe
17	17 January 1882	Harry Charles Sachsen Lilian Annie Paitt		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	20 22	Christchurch Christchurch	20 years 22 years	St. Luke's Church	82/1490	Percival Pearce Father	1 February 1882	Rev. E. A. Lingard
18	17 January 1882	John Martin Peace Matilda Chillingworth	John Martin Henrietta Louisa Collins 💍 1882/2265	Bachelor Spinster	Dairyman Dressmaker	33 19	St. Albans Christchurch	3 years 14 years	Roman Catholic Church	82/1530		17 January 1882	Rev. L. Guinty
19	18 January 1882	Dierich Meierhoff Mary Quaid	Diedrich Meierhoff Maria Anna Schroeder 💍 1882/873	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	27 25	Kaiapoi Christchurch	4 years 4 years	In the House of Mr. Shroder	82/1582		18 January 1882	Rev. P. Jacobsen
20	18 January 1882	Daniel O'Brien Maria Shroder	Daniel O'Brien Florence Porter 💍 1882/606	Bachelor Spinster	Grainier	35 21	Riccarton Kaiapoi	14 years 6 years	In the Registry Office, Christchurch	82/1571	Alfred Porter	18 January 1882	Registrar of Marriages
	18 January 1882	Florence Porter		Spinster		20	Christchurch	3 days			Ashburton Father		J.J. Maukerson

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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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 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

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).