Intentions to Marry, 1893

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840405, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole and Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 6 2025.

A few pages are missing due to focus issues.

Page 248

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 March 1893

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
43	14 February 1893	Patrick Quick Mary Ann McCallum	Patrick Smith Margaret McCallum 💍 1893/580	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Servant	27 25	Christchurch Christchurch	7 years 5 years	Registrars Office	93/608		14 February 1893	Registrar of Marriages J. D. Patterson
44	14 February 1893	Sylvester Theridore I Jane Kittering	Sylvester Sheridan Jane Kittenberg 💍 1893/589	Bachelor Spinster	Groom	29 30	Christchurch Christchurch	3 weeks 3 months	St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church	93/593		14 February 1893	Rev. M. Marman, Roman Catholic
45	17 February 1893	James Handler Frances Alfred Moody		Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter	23 26	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 10 days	Registrars Office	93/610		17 February 1893	Registrar of Marriages J. D. Patterson
46	21 February 1893	William Henry Jonathan Everitt Mary Ann Perham	William Henry Jonathan Everett Mary Anne Perham 💍 1893/584	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	34 20	Christchurch Christchurch	1 year 20 years	Registrars Office	93/611	William Perham, Father	21 February 1893	Registrar of Marriages J. D. Patterson
47	21 February 1893	Frederick William Cromwell Short Alice Cockroft	Frederick William Cramwell Short Alice Cockroft 💍 1893/1098	Bachelor Spinster	Groom Tailoress	22 23	Christchurch Christchurch	17 years 15 years	House of Mrs. Sheckerd, Addington	93/558		21 February 1893	Rev. G. Housell, Methodist
48	21 February 1893	Alfred John Burgess Neale Ronia Campbell	Alfred John Burgess Rosina Campbell 💍 1893/1705	Divorced Spinster	Solicitor	25 23	Christchurch Christchurch	1 year 3 years	St. Pauls Church	93/1589		21 February 1893	Rev. F. Eleuslie, Presbyterian
49	22 February 1893	John Edmonds Elizabeth Elliott	John Edmonds Elizabeth Elliott 💍 1893/1227	Bachelor Spinster	Mariner	27 17	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 17 years	St. Michaels Church	93/620	Margaret Elliott, Mother	22 February 1893	Rev. G. J. Cholmondeley, Church of England

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 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

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).