Intentions to Marry, 1874

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840386, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 349

District of Masterton Quarter ending Jan - Mar

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 January 1874	Charles Bentley Barbara Mutrie	Charles Bentley Barbara Mutrie 💍 1874/6454	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25 25	Masterton Manawatu	2 years 8	Dwellinghouse Jno Alex Mutrie	74/164		27 January 1874	Rev John Law
119	19 January 1874	Richard Theophilus Sankesley Maria Prentice	Richard T Tankersley Maria Prentice 💍 1874/9334	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 20	Masterton Masterton	1 year 5	Dwellinghouse of Mr Stephen Prentice	74/178	Stephen Guyon Prentice Minor's father	19 January 1874	Rev John Ryfs
120	27 January 1874	Henry Bannister Mary Jones	Henry Bannister Mary Tone 💍 1874/6445	Widower Widow	Storekeeper Hotelkeeper	60 40	Masterton Masterton	16 yrs 3 yrs	Anglican Church Masterton	74/190		27 January 1874	Rev Amos Hincle
121	30 January 1874	Ludwig Theodor Heyer Christina Margaret Petersen	Ludwig Theodor Heyer Christina Margaret Petersen 💍 1874/6448	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	28 19	Masterton Masterton	3 yrs 5 mo	Office of Registrar of Marriages Masterton	74/192	Hans Marcus Petersen Minor's father	30 January 1874	Holmes Brayne Regr
122	19 February 1874	Joseph Alfred Renale Mary Sayer	Joseph Alfred Renall Mary Sayer 💍 1874/6451	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	21 21	Masterton Masterton	8 yrs 2 yrs	Office of Regr. of Marriages Masterton	74/193		24 February 1874	Holmes Brayne Regr
123	23 March 1874	Ninrean M. Master Letitia Catherine Drummond	Duncan McMaster Dolina Catherine Drummond 💍 1874/14166	Bachelor Spinster	Grazier	26 22	Masterton Haumings	3 yrs 15 yrs	Dwellinghouse of Chas. Hallance Esqr.	74/191		20 March 1874	Rev Amos Hincle
124	23 March 1874	Joseph Southee See 1874/7822 Eliza Ann Booth	[No matching marriage registration has been located]	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	25-6 21-9	Otahuao Otahuao	7 yrs 4 mo	Scot's Church		Not solemnized by him		Rev James Lawrie

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).