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 708

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 March 1882 Registrar M Walkerson

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
61	25 February 1882	Hosa Adam Chiarini Huily		Bachelor Spinster	Horsebreaker	27	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 4 years	In the House of Mr. Ballaston	82/501		25 February 1882	Rev. C. Ballaston
62	25 February 1882	Thomas Cross Adelaide Thompson	Thomas Bax Alice Thompson 💍 1883/386	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	23 21	Springston Christchurch	2 years	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	82/512		25 February 1882	Rev. C. Fraser
63	25 February 1882	Alfred Daniel Olive Wainwright		Bachelor Spinster	Saddler Servant	24 21	Cust Springston	2 years 15 years	In the Wesleyan, Cust, Church	82/486		25 February 1882	Rev. A. Reid
64	25 February 1882	George Sutherland Jane Willis	George Sutherland Harriet Parker 💍 1882/588	Bachelor Spinster	Woolsorter Dressmaker	37 25	Christchurch Christchurch	10 years 2 years	In the Registrar's Office	82/518		25 February 1882	M Walkerson
65	25 February 1882	David William Lennan Harriet Paulker		Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Teacher	25 29	Ellesmere Christchurch	5 years 1 year	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	82/514		25 February 1882	Rev. C. Fraser
66	27 February 1882	George Edgington Una Heabourne		Bachelor Spinster	Builder Servant	30 24	Christchurch Ellesmere	3 days 4 years	In St. John's, Rakaia Church	82/1321		27 February 1882	Rev. H. C. M. Watson
67	28 February 1882	Richard Jolen Mary Brookson		Bachelor Spinster	Grocer Servant	21 28	Christchurch Christchurch	2 years 1 month	In the Methodist Chapel	82/493	Zachariah Biddle	28 February 1882	Rev. R. C. Perry
68	28 February 1882	George Bushnell Maria Biddle		Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Servant	29 20	Christchurch Christchurch	12 years 2 years	In St. Luke's Church	82/492	Hatter	28 February 1882	Rev. L. A. Lingard
		Nelson & Harriet Maria Johnson		Spinster	Dressmaker	28	Christchurch	5 months	Christchurch			28 February 1882	Rev. L. A. Lingard

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

100% Contrast

100% Brightness

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).