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 715

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 30 June 1882 Registrar M. Mathesson

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
108	06 April 1882	John Wright Paulger & Clunie		Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	26 26	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	In the House, J. W. Lewis	82/1342		06 April 1882	Rev. W. Baumber, Methodist
109	06 April 1882	John Sullivan Elizabeth Shipman	John Sullivan Bridget Moloney 💍 1882/443	Bachelor Spinster	Barman Servant	23 24	Christchurch Christchurch	22 18 months	Taylors Lane, Ch:ch			06 April 1882	Rev. L. Quirk, Roman Catholic
110	06 April 1882	Mary Harvey Clara Hock		Spinster Spinster		21 27	Christchurch Sydenham	21 By the house	Catholic Church	82/1296		06 April 1882	Rev. J. S. Rishworth, Wesleyan
111	11 April 1882	William Buick William Jinnock		Bachelor Bachelor	Bricklayer Grocer	38 33	Spreydon Christchurch	7 years 5 days	Harper Street	82/1384		11 April 1882	Registrar Marriages, M. Mathesson
112	11 April 1882	Joseph Auces Heywood Means		Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Milliner	37 24	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 9 months	In the Parsonage, Wellington	82/1414		11 April 1882	Rev. H. Brittan, Church of England
113	11 April 1882	James Farthing Isabella Hamilton	James Farthing Isabella Hamilton 💍 1882/1421	Widower Spinster	Draper Milliner	42 28	Christchurch Christchurch	7 months 4 days	In the Registrars Office, Christchurch	82/1388		11 April 1882	Registrar Marriages, M. Parkerson
114	13 April 1882	William Henry Isabella Hamilton	William Brown Isabella Taylor 💍 1882/2275 William Milne Isabella Howie 💍 1882/271 William Edwards Isabella Carty 💍 1882/2429 William Rapley Isabella Bellve 💍 1882/1862 William Baird Isabella Bryce 💍 1883/762 William Brew Isabella Jessimin 💍 1882/423	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker Milliner	24 28	Christchurch Christchurch	3 years 4 days	In H. Wilkes, Church	82/1358	William Wilkes, Father	13 April 1882	Rev. L. A. Lingard, Church of England
115	14 April 1882	Charles Henry Caroline Wilkes	William Henry McKellow Caroline Wilkes 💍 1882/1294	Bachelor Spinster	Messenger Servant	33 20	Christchurch Christchurch	10 months 4 years	In the House of Rev. C. Fraser	82/1384		14 April 1882	Rev. C. Fraser, Presbyterian
		Margaret Dalton		Spinster	Servant	33	Christchurch	6 years	Hereford Street

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).