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 756

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 December 1882 Registrar M. Markerson

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]	12 December 1882	Charles Alexander Merton Gertrude		[illegible] Spinster	[illegible] [illegible]	[illegible] 19	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	Christchurch	[illegible]	William Alexander Father	12 December 1882	M. Markerson
425	04 December 1882	Albrecht Frederick Hadecke Priscilla		Bachelor [illegible]	Mechanic [illegible]	28 [illegible]	Christchurch [illegible]	4 years [illegible]	In the Opawa	82/13033		04 December 1882	Rev. G. J. Cholmondaley
426	05 December 1882	James Brown Mary Smythe	James Barter Mary Smith 💍 1882/36	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	38 24	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 4 years	Church	82/13058		05 December 1882	Rev. J. W. Rue
427	06 December 1882	John George Elliott Maud Dublin		Bachelor Spinster	Storekeeper [illegible]	26 21	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 1 month	In H. Leukes Church	82/13065		06 December 1882	Rev. L. A. Lingard
428	06 December 1882	Robert McCausland Bryant Palmer	Robert McCausland Mary Ann Irving Gray 💍 1882/2889	Widower Widow	Caretaker [illegible]	38 22	Christchurch Christchurch	8 years 3 days	In the House of Rev. H. Williams	82/13109		06 December 1882	Rev. H. Williams
429	08 December 1882	William Chapman Irving Grey		Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Servant	37 21	Christchurch Christchurch	3 months 3 months	In the House, Avonside of Mr. Moffatt	82/13028		08 December 1882	Rev. I. R. Cairns
430	08 December 1882	Charles Joice Margaret Paul	Charles Ahing Margaret Irwin 💍 1882/1484	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	26 32	Templeton Christchurch	6 years 6 months	In Templeton	82/13432		08 December 1882	Rev. A. L. Wright
431	09 December 1882	Josiah Hadges Emily Maddeson		Bachelor Spinster	Farmer [illegible]	23 22	Christchurch Templeton	16 years 18 years	In the Avonside Church	82/13054		09 December 1882	Rev. W. A. Pascoe
432	11 December 1882	Alfred James Mary Augusta		Bachelor [illegible]	Music Manager	25 23	Christchurch Christchurch	6 years 15 years	On the Avonside	82/13055		11 December 1882	Rev. W. A. Pascoe
433	12 December 1882	William Burnip May Ann Alexander	William Burnip Mary Ann Alexander 💍 1882/2901	Widower Spinster	Hotelkeeper	43 19	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	In the Registrars Office, Christchurch	82/3097	William Alexander, father	12 December 1882	Registrar Marriages M. Parkinson

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).