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 753

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 December 1882 Registrar M Parkerson

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
398	November 1882	William Thomas Smith		Bachelor [illegible]	Farmer	27	Christchurch	[illegible]	Registrar's Office	82/3090		November 4 1882	Registrar Marriages M Walkerson
399	November 4 1882	Alexander Simpson Margaret Keir	Alexander Simpson Margaret Keir 💍 1882/3266	Bachelor Spinster	Painter	31 21	Christchurch Dunedin	8 years 16 years	In the House of James Keir, Heriot Row, Dunedin	82/3245		November 4 1882	Rev L. Uraellie Presbyterian
400	November 6 1882	Thomas Rogers Margaret	Thomas Rogers Margaret Ann Kane 💍 1882/2890	Bachelor [illegible]	Storeman	26	Christchurch	19 years	In the Methodist Church	82/3110		November 6 1882	Rev C. Penney Methodist
401	November 6 1882	Walter Harris Ann Kane	Walter Harris Alice Jane Wade 💍 1882/96 Walter Harris Sophia Jansen 💍 1882/2813	Bachelor Spinster	Baker Servant	21 25	Avonside Christchurch	3 years 6 years	St. Asaph Street	82/3053		November 6 1882	Rev Wa Pascoe Church of England
402	November 8 1882	Frederick Oliver Alice Jane Wade		Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	23 19	Christchurch Avonside	3 days 18 years	In the House of Miss Chambers	82/3104		November 8 1882	Rev S. Garlick Wesleyan
403	November 10 1882	John Coakley Jane Howell	John Coakley Elizabeth Delahunt 💍 1882/3320	Bachelor Spinster	Hotelkeeper Servant	28 17	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 1 week	In the Roman Catholic Church	82/3478	Father	November 10 1882	Rev L. Guinty Roman Catholic
404	November 10 1882	Alfred Edward Elizabeth Delahunt	Alfred Bridgford Elizabeth March 💍 1882/2673 Alfred Jones Elizabeth Clarke 💍 1882/3114	Bachelor Spinster	Professor	45 22	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 3 years	In the Registrar's Office	82/3092		November 10 1882	Registrar Marriages M Walkerson
405	November 10 1882	Christopher Hampton King & Fanny Mullichamp	Christopher Hampton Sarah Jane Sinclair 💍 1882/3480	Widower Divorced	Farmer	44 31	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 weeks	In the House	82/3572		November 10 1882	Rev C. Fraser Presbyterian
406	November 11 1882	Kenneth Morrisna Jane Sinclair Kirkwood	Kenneth Morrison Jennie Kirkwood 💍 1882/3482	Bachelor Spinster	Shepherd Housekeeper	33 24	Christchurch Christchurch	1 month 1 week	In the House of Mr. Assession	82/3574		November 11 1882	Rev C. Fraser Presbyterian

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).