Intentions to Marry, 1868

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840380, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 279

District of Quarter ending

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
1024	5 October 1868	Thomas Cotter Susanna Ann Dixon	Thomas Cotter Susannah Ann Dixon 💍 1868/7598	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	22 25	Riverside Greytown Masterton	4 yrs 10 yrs	English Church at Masterton	1023		6 October 1868	Rev. Armstrole
1025	6 October 1868	William Hinton Mary Ann Anderson	William Hinton Mary Ann Anderson 💍 1868/7604 William Carpenter Mary Jane Anderson 💍 1868/8744 William Ritchie Margaret Anderson 💍 1868/9482 Thomas Henry Mary Ann Anderson 💍 1868/6650	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Dressmaker	26 24	Te Ore Ore Te Ore Ore	11 Mos 1 Mo.	Office of Registrar of Marriages Wairarapa	1025		7 October 1868	Holmes Brayne (Regtr)
1027	20 October 1868	Thomas Mathew York Hannah Savener	Thomas Kettim York Hannah Tavener 💍 1868/7592	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	19 17	Masterton Masterton	8 Mos 10 yrs	Dwellinghouse of Jas Savener Masterton	1027	James Wavener father of Hannah Savener	21 October 1868	Rev. John S. Rishworth
1033	10 December 1868	James McGregor Lois Feist	James McGregor Lois Feist 💍 1868/7625	Bachelor Spinster	Sawyer	24 27	Masterton Masterton	3 yrs 3 yrs	Dwellinghouse of Vincent Feist Masterton	1033		24 December 1868	Rev. John Croft
1045	26 October 1868	Joseph Bennett Helen Drummond	Joseph Bennett Helen Drummond 💍 1868/7661	Widower Spinster	Glazier	34 20	Featherston Hammings	7 yrs 9 yrs	Dwellinghouse of A. Ballance Esq. Featherston	1045	Ana [UNCLEAR] Ballance stepfather & Guardian of Helen Drummond	26 October 1868	Rev. Jas. Andrew

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

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).