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 760

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 December 1882 Registrar 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
460	27 December 1882	Alfred France Lowe Emily Phebe Wakeling	Alfred France Lowe Emily Phoebe Wakeling 💍 1882/77	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper	28 23	Christchurch Christchurch	2 years 1 year	In the roadside	83/3054		27 December 1882	Rev H. A. Pascoe, Church of England
461	27 December 1882	John Thomas Virtue Marian Hephzibah Jones	John Thomas Virtue Marian Hephzibah Jones 💍 1883/920	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	23 21	Christchurch Christchurch	19 years 10 years	In the roadside	83/490		27 December 1882	Rev H. A. Pascoe, Church of England
462	27 December 1882	Charles Latham Hannah Broome	Charles Latham Hannah Broom 💍 1882/2897	Bachelor Spinster	Miller Servant	24 26	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 2 years	In the Wesleyan Church	83/116		27 December 1882	Rev J. Rishworth, Wesleyan
463	27 December 1882	Walter George Syder Sarah Adams Straw	Walter George Syden Sarah Adams Straw 💍 1883/703	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	30 19	Christchurch Christchurch	1 week 19 years	In the house of Mrs. Lyes Addington	83/435	George Frederick Straw Father	27 December 1882	Rev J. Crewes, Bible [?] Christian
464	28 December 1882	John Joseph Woolen Caroline Anne Norenoss	John Joseph Wooler Caroline Annie Norcross 💍 1882/2709	Bachelor Spinster	Draper Dressmaker	27 21	Christchurch Christchurch	5 days 5 days	In St. Saviour's Church	83/3031		28 December 1882	Rev H. S. Cocks, Church of England
465	28 December 1882	George Arthur Evans Smith Josephina Bernardina Brinckmann	George Arthur Evans Smith Josephina Bernardina Brinkmann 💍 1882/80	Bachelor Spinster	Stablekeeper	21 17	Christchurch Christchurch	1 month 13 years	In St. Luke's Church Christchurch	82/3069	Edward Brinckmann Father	28 December 1882	Rev T. A. Lingard, Church of England
466	28 December 1882	William Jarden Elizabeth Jane Uren	William Jarden Elizabeth Jane Uren 💍 1883/941	Bachelor Spinster	Carter Machinist	23 21	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 3 years	In the House of Mr. Walker	83/484	Father	28 December 1882	Rev W. Tinley, Wesleyan
467	28 December 1882	Edward Bishop Charlotte Rogers	Edward Bishop Charlotte Rogers 💍 1882/2883	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Housekeeper	33 42	Christchurch Christchurch	6 days 6 days	In the Registrar's Office, Christchurch	83/103		28 December 1882	Registrar of Marriages, Markerson

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).