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 714

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 30 June 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
31	February 1882	John James Speight Mary Anne Byrne	John James Speight Mary Anne Byrne 💍 1882/1407									28 April 1882	Registrar Marriages M. Walkerson
84	14 March 1882	George Heywood Margaret Crossman	George Flood Margaret Halcrow 💍 1882/3328 George Heller Margaret Hamilton 💍 1882/1888
102	1 April 1882	Robert Hone Florence Matilda		Bachelor	Law Clerk	24	Christchurch	20 years	In St. Johns Church	82/1318		1 April 1882	Rev. C. I. Merton Church of England
103	3 April 1882	George Laurence Limbrick Elizabeth Noy	George Lawrence Limbrick Elizabeth Noy 💍 1882/26	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	27 21	Tai Tapu Spreydon	1 year 4 years	In the House	82/1343		3 April 1882	Rev. C. Fraser Presbyterian
104	3 April 1882	Patrick Riordan Mary Burke	Patrick Riordan Mary Burke 💍 1882/1247	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	32 20	Kirwee Lincoln	3 days 1 year	In the Roman Catholic Church			3 April 1882	Rev. J. Cheronici Roman Catholic
105	4 April 1882	Jeremiah Scanlan Mary Ellen Nagle	Jeremiah Scanlan Mary Ellen Nagle 💍 1882/1354	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Servant	23 21	Christchurch Christchurch	4 months 3 months	In the Roman Catholic Church	82/1295		4 April 1882	Rev. L. Guiaty Roman Catholic
106	4 April 1882	George Barclay Isabella Moffat	George Barclay Isabella Moffat 💍 1882/1419	Bachelor Spinster	Ploughman	45 42	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	In the Registrars Office	82/1386		4 April 1882	Registrar Marriages M. Walkerson
107	4 April 1882	Thomas Doolan Martha Jane Horsley	Thomas Jenkins Hill Martha Jane Horsley 💍 1882/1251	Bachelor Spinster	Law Clerk	27 18	Christchurch Papanui	7 years 7 years	In the Papanui Church	82/1446	Thomas Horsley Father	4 April 1882	Rev. T. Brittan Church of England

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).