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 744

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 30 September 1882 Registrar M. Matheson

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
338	12 September 1882	William Beale Mary Aim	William Beale Mary Ann Selina Lowe 💍 1882/2254	Widower [illegible]	Grocer	60	Christchurch New Plymouth	3 days In the House of Mr. Smallwood		82/16		12 September 1882	Rev. C. Ballaston
339	13 September 1882	Francis William Jelena Lowe		Bachelor Spinster	Draughtsman	27 39	Christchurch Christchurch	6 years 8 years	In St. Luke's	82/198		13 September 1882	Rev. E. A. Lingard
340	14 September 1882	John Kitchen Annis Cassandra Blackstone	John Kitchen Annie Cassandra Blackstone 💍 1882/2067	Widower Widow	Mason Housekeeper	50 49	Christchurch Christchurch	17 years 5 years	In St. Matthews	82/202		14 September 1882	Rev. R. Mortimer
341	14 September 1882	James Batting Ann Lake		Bachelor Spinster	Draper	32 32	Christchurch Christchurch	4 months 3 years	In the Registrars Office	82/263		14 September 1882	Registrar of Marriages
342	14 September 1882	Frederick Joseph Mary Castle Haskins	Frederick Joseph Doubleday Laura Mary Castle Hawkins 💍 1882/2064	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	23 23	Christchurch Christchurch	18 months 23 years	In St. Luke's	82/199		14 September 1882	Rev. E. A. Lingard
343	14 September 1882	James William Belle McLean	James Wilkin Helen Bell McLean 💍 1882/3148	Bachelor Spinster	Merchant	28 21	Christchurch Christchurch	26 years 20 years	In St. Andrews	82/212		14 September 1882	Rev. C. Fraser
344	15 September 1882	James Coulter Mary Barrett	James Coulter Mary Barrett 💍 1882/1960	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	25 21	Christchurch Christchurch	4 years 12 years	In the Registrars Office	82/264		15 September 1882	Registrar of Marriages
345	16 September 1882	Charles Bailey Ellen Hill	Charles Barry Elizabeth Hill 💍 1883/946	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	27 19	Halswell West Melton	2 months 3 years	In the Riccarton	82/3617	Hill, Father	16 September 1882	Rev. E. Bower
346	19 September 1882	William Kendall Fraser McIntosh	William Kendall Annie Fraser McIntosh 💍 1882/2156	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	33 23	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 7 days	In St. Michaels	82/272		19 September 1882	Rev. W. Harper

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).