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 927

District of Riverton Quarter ending Jul - Sep

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
134	3 July 1874	Duncan McLean Janet McKendrie	Duncan McLean Janet McKenzie 💍 1874/10132	Br Spin	Shepherd	22 18	Venmore Waimatuku	11 yrs 9 yrs	Residence of Andrew McKendrie Waimatuku	1449	Andrew McKendrie, Father	3 July 1874	Rev C S Ross
135	14 July 1874	John Murdoch Elizabeth Mitchell	John Murdoch Elizabeth Mitchell 💍 1874/10135	Br Spin	Shoemaker D[UNCLEAR]st	24 18	Riverton	1 year	Residence of Fredk Mitchell	1450	Frederick Mitchell, Father	14 July 1874	Rev C S Ross
136	31 August 1874	Robert Baird Margaret McMinn	Robert Baird Margaret McMinn 💍 1874/10138	Widower Spinster	Farmer Domestic servant	42 24	Limestone Plains Limestone Plains	2 yrs	Residence of Mr Baird	74/1451		31 August 1874	Rev C S Ross
137	2 September 1874	Matthew Hollow Mary Hall	Matthew Fallow Mary Hall 💍 1874/10141	Br Spin	Farmer	36 25	Flint's Bush	11 yrs	Residence of ???? Hall	1452		2 Sept 1874	Rev C S Ross
138	11 September 1874	Charles Murdock Dorah Healey	"granting of certificate refused"	Bachelore Spinster	Contractor	21 20	Sutton Farm near Riverton Riverton	4 weeks 1 day	The Manse Riverton		not resident in colony	granting of certificate refused
139	29 September 1874	Charles Frentz Mary Frew	Charles Frentz Mary Frew 💍 1874/9673	Bachelor Spinster	Gold Miner Domestic servant	35 21	Riverton Riverton	6 yrs 17 yrs	office of Registrar Riverton	74/1295		29 Sept	Rev V Bailey Registrar
140	30 September 1874	Thomas D Stanley Charlotte Entwistle	Thomas D Stanley Charlotte Entwistle 💍 1874/9676	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer Domestic Servant	35 25	Riverton Riverton	6 mo 6 mo	Office of Registrar Riverton	74/1296		30 September 1874	Rev V Bailey
141	30 Sept	Charles Golden Mary Ann Ferguson	Charles J B Golder Margaret Ferguson 💍 1874/9679	Br Spin	Warehouser	31 23	Riverton Riverton	3 mo 14 days	Office of Registrar Riverton	1297		30 Sept	Rev W Cowley

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).