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 728

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 30 June 1882 Registrar M Markusson

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
[illegible]	17 June 1882	Annlin Alice Palmer [illegible]		Spinster [illegible]	[illegible] [illegible]	23 [illegible]	Christchurch [illegible]	15 years [illegible]	Christchurch Church of England			[illegible]	[illegible]
218	12 June 1882	Henry George Ba[illegible] Baunton & Alice		Bachelor [illegible]	Groom [illegible]	25 [illegible]	Lepawa [illegible]	4 years [illegible]	In St. Andrews Church	82/1443		12 June 1882	Rev. C. Fraser
219	13 June 1882	Heinrich Richard Schmidt Maria Small		Bachelor Spinster	Draughtsman Servant	24 25	Christchurch Lepawa	1 year 3 years	In St. Pauls Church	82/1316		13 June 1882	Rev. I. Unslie
220	13 June 1882	Hedwig Schmidt Mary Merson		Spinster Spinster	[illegible] Servant	[illegible] 23	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 23 years	Cashel Street In the Church of St. Luke	82/1191		13 June 1882	Rev. R. A. Lingard
221	14 June 1882	George Fearn John Low		Widower Bachelor	Master Station Wheelwright	43 25	Blenheim Christchurch	3 years 4 days	Christchurch, Blenheim In St. Andrews, Southbridge Church	82/1444		14 June 1882	Rev. C. Fraser
222	14 June 1882	William Hay Mary Jane Piercy	William Hay Caroline McClelland 💍 1882/1246	Widower Spinster	Farmer Dressmaker	43 22	Rolleston Christchurch	17 years 17 years	Yuan Health In the Methodist Church	82/1411		14 June 1882	Rev. R. Taylor
223	15 June 1882	Caroline McClelland Isabella Esther Macdonald		Spinster Spinster	Draper [illegible]	33 17	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 8 years	Addington In the House	82/1345	John Macdonald	15 June 1882	Rev. I. Restinworth
224	15 June 1882	Frederick William James Thomas Hunter		Bachelor Bachelor	Coachsmith Labourer	22 26	Christchurch Christchurch	17 years 6 years	Sydenham In the Rykton Office	82/1465		15 June 1882	Registrar Fleminger
225	15 June 1882	Edward Ademar Cogant Ellen Jay Russell		Bachelor Spinster	Sailor Servant	26 20	Heathcote Christchurch	2 years 20 years	Christchurch In St. Johns Church	82/13632		15 June 1882	Rev. C. I. Munton
226	17 June 1882	George Henry Wright Caroline Groombridge		Bachelor Spinster	Clerk [illegible]	29 25	Christchurch Heathcote	3 years 20 years	Woolston In the Avonside Church of England	82/1357		17 June 1882	Rev. W. A. Pascoe

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).