Intentions to Marry, 1894

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840406, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, June 6 2025

Page 1569

District of Christchurch Quarter ending 31 December 1894

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
408	13 December 1894	Samuel William Fulton Ellen Cryer McCormick		Bachelor Spinster	Coal dealer	25 30	Christchurch Christchurch	6 years 1 year	House of Mr. Samuel Fulton, Woolston	94/3692	13 December 1894	Rev. J. M. Simpson, Presbyterian
409	14 December 1894	Ernest William Lawworthy Evans Rose Letitia Weakley	Ernest William Langworthy Evans Rose Letitia Weakley 💍 1894/3512	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	29 22	Christchurch Christchurch	3 weeks 15 years	House of Mr. Walter Weakley, Ferry Road	94/3697	14 December 1894	Rev. W. Birch, Baptist
410	14 December 1894	William James Button Louisa Cook	William James Button Louisa Cook 💍 1894/3474 James Rasmus Rugsted Louisa Cook 💍 1894/2307	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Bootfitter	28 23	Christchurch Christchurch	10 years 18 years	House of Mr. W. J. Button, Barbados St., Christchurch	94/3698	14 December 1894	Rev. W. Birch, Baptist
411	14 December 1894	Frederick Lockhart Robertson Marshall Alice Symons Knowles	Frederick Lockhart Robertson Marshall Alice Symons Brown 💍 1894/3519	Bachelor Spinster	Shipping Agent	25 24	Christchurch Christchurch	14 years 24 years	Church of Good Shepherd, Phillipstown	94/3681	14 December 1894	Rev. H. J. E. Gilbert, Church of England
412	14 December 1894	Thomas Stoker Dixon Mary Alice Harwood	Thomas Stoker Dixon Mary Ann Henwood 💍 1894/3501	Bachelor Spinster	Mechanic Dressmaker	32 28	Christchurch Christchurch	9 years 28 years	St. Michael's Church, Christchurch	94/3689	14 December 1894	Rev. A. W. Averill, Church of England
413	14 December 1894	William Charles Drew Ollivier Louisa Catherine Brown	William Charles Drew Olliver Lousia Catherine Brown 💍 1894/3487	Bachelor Spinster	Theatrical Servant	23 24	Christchurch Christchurch	3 days 3 years	House of Mr. Chas. Parsons, Manchester St., Christchurch	94/3722	14 December 1894	Rev. J. Lawson, Methodist
414	15 December 1894	George Alsop Mary Louise Templeton	George Alsop Mary Luke 💍 1895/3158	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer Domestic	24 21	Christchurch Christchurch	16 years 1 year	St. Saviour's Church, Templeton	95/1656	15 December 1894	Rev. W. Knowles, 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).