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 710

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 March 1882 Registrar M Milkerson

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
77	8 March 1882	William Henry Heaton Garry & Margaret Warden	William Henry Heaton Terry Margaret Warden 💍 1882/891	Bachelor Spinster	Plasterer	20 19	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 19 years	In the House of Mr. Merry	82/498	Thomas March & George Warden, Fathers	8 March 1882	Rev ce Peters, Methodist
78	9 March 1882	George Batstone Ruth Cleaver	George Batstone Ruth Cleaver 💍 1882/594	Bachelor Spinster	Boiler	29 21	Kirwee Courtenay	4 years 1 year	In the Registrar's Office	82/522		9 March 1882	Register Marriages, M Milkerson
79	9 March 1882	William Edmundstone Agnes McDowell	William Edmonstone Agnes McDowal 💍 1882/595	Bachelor Spinster	Painter Dressmaker	29 22	Sydenham Sydenham	6 months 4 years	In the Church of St. Paul	82/545		9 March 1882	Rev I. Elmslie, Presbyterian
80	11 March 1882	Charles Lewis Jessie Parr	Charles Lewis Jessie Parr 💍 1882/711	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	24 25	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 5 days	In H. Savious Church	82/568		11 March 1882	Rev H. B. Cocks, Church of England
81	11 March 1882	George Clark Smith & Emily Florence Vogle	George Clark Anne Eliza Parker 💍 1882/1244	Widower Spinster	Engineer	26 24	Sydenham Opawa	4 years 2 years	In the Registrar's Office	82/522		11 March 1882	Register Marriages, M Milkerson
82	13 March 1882	Frederick Lewis Kossuth Hilet & Pamela Kate Godso		Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper	29 26	Christchurch Christchurch	21 years 7 years	In the [illegible] Avonside	82/484		13 March 1882	Rev W. A. Pascoe, Church of England
83	13 March 1882	Johann Heinrich Otto & Rosa Fischer	Johann Henrick Otto Rosa Fischer 💍 1882/720	Bachelor Spinster	Cabinet maker Servant	33 23	Christchurch Christchurch	8 years 2 years	In the House of Rev C. Fraser	82/516		13 March 1882	Rev C. Fraser, Presbyterian
84	14 March 1882	George Heywood Margaret Crossman	George Flood Margaret Halcrow 💍 1882/3328 George Heller Margaret Hamilton 💍 1882/1888	Bachelor Spinster	Cook Servant	24 20	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 3 years	In the Registrar's Office		No person having Authority to Consent

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).