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 1507

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 December 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
429	27 December 1893	Edward Alfred Piper Sarah Maria Heenan	Edward Alfred Piper Sarah Mann 💍 1893/676	Bachelor Spinster	Butcher	30 22	Christchurch Windermere	20 years 22 years	House of Wm. Heenan, Windermere	93/3575		27 December 1893	Rev. J. N. Buttle, Wesleyan
430	27 December 1893	George Free Emily Thorne	George Free Emily Thorne 💍 1893/684	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 19	Christchurch New Brighton	26 years 12 years	House of Mr. George Free	93/3571	William Thorne, Father	27 December 1893	Rev. H. R. Inwood, Church of England
431	27 December 1893	Thomas Edgar Cooper Amy Catterson	Thomas Edgar Cooper Amy Atkinson 💍 1893/3765	Bachelor Spinster	Paper Ruler	26 24	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 24 years	St. John's Church, Christchurch	93/4087		27 December 1893	Rev. H. Clissold Watson, Church of England
432	27 December 1893	John Hemsley Archibald Fanny Leila Pryde	John Elinstin Archibald Fanny Leila Pryde 💍 1893/3777	Bachelor Spinster	Schoolmaster Governess	36 35	Christchurch Christchurch	4 days 4 days	House of Rev. H. Hemsley, Lichfield Street, Christchurch	93/4041		27 December 1893	Rev. H. Hemsley, Presbyterian
433	27 December 1893	William Phipps Maud Saddler	William Phipps Maud Sadler 💍 1893/4103	Bachelor Spinster	Journalist	27 22	Christchurch Sydenham	3 days 3 days	House of Mr. Saddler, Norwich Street, Sydenham	93/3576		27 December 1893	Rev. J. N. Buttle, Wesleyan
434	28 December 1893	George Honey Thompson Gertrude Duing	George Henry Thompson Gertrude Emily Owen 💍 1893/3296	Widower Widow		51 46	Christchurch Christchurch	6 years 6 years	Registrar's Office	93/3597		28 December 1893	Registrar, Marriage
435	28 December 1893	Norman Budge Sarah Saunders	Norman Ludvig Christensen Sarah Saunders 💍 1894/669	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	22 20	Christchurch Aberdeen St.	5 days 5 years	House of Town Clerk, Aberdeen St.	94/1690	Town Clerk, Father	28 December 1893	Mr. F. W. Veal, Salvation Army

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).