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 759

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

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
452	21 December 1882	Henry Jacob Margaret Green		Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	29 19	Christchurch Christchurch	29 years 21 years	Wesleyan Church St Albans Road	82/3046	Robert Austin Bowlbyes Father	21 December 1882	Rev. I. Aldred
453	22 December 1882	James Alfred Hannah Green		Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker	27 23	Christchurch Christchurch	27 years 23 years	Wesleyan Church St Albans Road	82/3047	[illegible]	22 December 1882	Rev. I. Aldred
454	22 December 1882	Henry Sainsbury Emily Meads	Henry Sainsbury Emily Maude Godfrey Barr 💍 1882/76	Bachelor Spinster	Moulder	28 20	Christchurch Christchurch	5 months 5 months	Avonside Church	82/3056	Family Barr Mother	22 December 1882	Rev. W. a Pascoe
455	23 December 1882	John Hanan Ann Fraser	John Hanan Anne Fraser 💍 1882/73	Bachelor Spinster	Grain Merchant	29 19	Christchurch Christchurch	6 years 19 years	In the House of Wm Fraser	82/3044	William Fraser Father	23 December 1882	Rev. R. Taylor
456	23 December 1882	George Frances Trask & Theresa		Bachelor Spinster	Machinist	21 23	Christchurch Christchurch	21 years 19 years	In St Dulles Church	82/3059	[illegible]	23 December 1882	Rev. I. a Anigard
457	27 December 1882	Charles Robert Thompson Nelson		Bachelor Spinster	Coachsmith Servant	23 23	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 20 years	In the Baptist Church	82/3048	[illegible]	27 December 1882	Rev. C. Dallaston
458	27 December 1882	John Gilspin Ann Cox		Bachelor Spinster	Gardener Teacher	38 26	Riccarton Christchurch	15 years 4 days	In the House of Rev. C. Dallaston	[illegible]	[illegible]	27 December 1882	Rev. C. Dallaston
459	27 December 1882	Walter South Jane Johnston		Bachelor Spinster	Bookmaker Servant	23 23	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 2 years	In the Registrars Office	83/3107	Andrew Reid	27 December 1882	Registrar M. MacKesson
460	27 December 1882	Walter South Annie Reid	Walter South Annie Reid 💍 1882/2905	Bachelor Spinster	Bookmaker	23 18	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 3 months	[illegible]	[illegible]	[illegible]	[illegible]	[illegible]

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).