Intentions to Marry, 1884

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840396, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, April 30 2025

Page 456

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 30 June 1884

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
118	12 April 1884	Edwin Levan Beach Sarah Green	Edwin Swan Sarah Green 💍 1884/2303	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor	35 22	St. Albans St. Albans	22 Years	In the house of Mr. Green	84/1458		12 April 1884	Rev W. Morley Wesleyan
119	12 April 1884	James Beck Ellen Paunch	James Banks Ellen Pannell 💍 1884/2238	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	29 27	Avonside Avonside	1 week 1 week	In the Registrar's Office Christchurch	84/1423		12 April 1884	Registrar Marriage J. Mackesson
120	15 April 1884	Henry Wright Elizabeth Watson	Henry Wright Elizabeth Watson 💍 1884/2362	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 19	Christchurch Christchurch	5 days 19 years	House of Robert Watson	84/1476	Robert Watson, Father	15 April 1884	Rev W. Cannell Wesleyan
121	15 April 1884	Joseph Evans Amelia Grace Hartley Thompson	Joseph Evans Amelia Grace Hartly Thompson 💍 1884/1445	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	34 23	Christchurch Christchurch	4 months 3 days	St. John's Church Southland	84/2383		15 April 1884	Rev H. C. Watson Church of England
122	15 April 1884	Arthur Collin Bell Elizabeth Adelaide Foreman	Arthur Justin Bell Elizabeth Adelaide Foreman 💍 1884/2242	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	25 18	Weedon Templeton	16 years 18 years	Templeton Church	84/1408	John Foreman, Father	15 April 1884	Rev A. C. Wright Church of England
123	15 April 1884	Peter Cairns Matilda Beatrice Butler	Peter Cairns Matilda Beatrice Butler 💍 1884/2239	Bachelor Spinster	Tailor Servant	25 22	Christchurch Christchurch	2 years 15 years	In the Registrar's Office	84/1424		15 April 1884	Registrar Marriage J. Mackerson
124	15 April 1884	Frederick Hunt Christian McQueen	Frederick Hunt Christine McNevin Morrison Menzies 💍 1884/2373	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Dressmaker	23 27	Christchurch Christchurch	12 years 5 years	St. Saviour's Church	see entry 130		15 April 1884	Rev H. V. Cocks Church of England
125	16 April 1884	Philip John Hill Alice Dickson	Phillip John Hill Alice Dickson 💍 1884/3726	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	25 20	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 days	Kirwee Church	84/1490	Melville Dickson, Father	16 April 1884	Rev W. Dunkley Church of England
126	17 April 1884	Adolph Brunskill Harriet Harrisworth		Widower Widow	Farmer Servant	54 31	Christchurch Christchurch	13 years 7 years	House of Elizabeth Saxon	84/3801		17 April 1884	Rev J. S. Gilmore Baptist

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 1898. More registers will be added when the Archives NZ Wellington reading room re-opens in September 2025.

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).