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On the Algernon name - apparently it means "man with a mustache" or something along those lines and was originally used as a nickname for William de Percy, who accompanied William the Conqueror in 1066. I can't seem to find any Wrens or Dawsons with that name further back in the tree so I assume it's original.
Well, whichever Wren son woo'd Sarah must have done it with their quirky name! 

I recall that earlier you may have mentioned that both Sarah's parents died in 1865 ... can you please check.  I can find her father, but not her mother.     I have noticed a death for a lass, Elizabeth aged 7 years, parents as John and Mary A, registered 1865, Eden.   

I have had a look and I can't seem to find anything. It's possible that it's perhaps evading Ancestry's search function, it's a bit picky with exact spelling of names on records and stuff like that. What I did find was that Sarah's mother was on trial for theft in 1862 and 63 in Eden. They were probably in a fairly bad way money wise.

What you're saying with her baptism record makes sense to an extent - but what's bugging me is that at the time of her death, her children evidently also believed she was about as old as she thought she was. She is recorded as 89 years old in newspapers and on her tombstone at the time of her death in January 1943. This lines up with the age she gave on John's birth certif. It seems likely she thought she was born somewhere in 1853. She was also illiterate so evidently she was not a student of Samuel's or anything like that. I can't really see a reason he'd dig up her baptism record. She was old enough to be married but not old enough to consent at the age she apparently thought she was so somebody must have given permission.
It is possible that the clergyman noted who gave permission and it simply was not included in the transcription that I have. Perhaps it was not written down.

Re the Vassall middle name - Henry Wren's mother was Mary Wren nee Vassall (sometimes spelled Vassal) so that would explain that. Henry and Elizabeth apparently quite liked odd names - Henry Erasmus and Arthur Alma?? Algernon and Decimus?! 

I think it is also very possible that Samuel was the biological father and that quite possibly the marriage was delayed until Sarah was old enough to give consent in her own right. 

I find this and a connection to H. Wren through Sarah's mother somewhat unlikely because it does not explain where the Dawson DNA would be coming from. Given our close DNA relations to Wrens and Dawsons and Sarah's connection to Kameruka, it makes far more sense that the child's father be one of Henry Wren and Elizabeth Dawson's sons. I also did a check - I have no DNA matches for any names in Samuel Thicknesse's tree. As to waiting until she could consent theory - this would make sense but she did not know that she was 21. John's birth certif. from August 1872 shows that she thought she was at least a year and a half younger than she was. So by her estimation and by extension everyone else's, she was still too young to consent herself at the time of marriage to Sam Thicknesse.

I do not have the official death certif. for John Thurston unfortunately.
Sarah finding employment at Kameruka/Tarraganda/Corridgeree after losing her parents is certainly a possibility and would absolutely explain how she met the Wrens.

Perhaps you have these, but for your interest

This funeral notice makes mention of John and Andrew Thurston again.

I actually had not seen this before, thank you!

So if John EVERETT was stepfather to John THICKNESSE, was that because his father was the late Samuel THICKNESSE...

JM

John Everett was Sarah's second husband. After Samuel died in 1884 in West Maitland, Sarah returned to Bega briefly (as evidenced by Edward Samuel Thicknesse's erroneous birth record) before she married John Everett in Newcastle in 1889.
Samuel Thicknesse was John William Thurston (Thicknesse)'s adoptive father 

Hi -

Excellent research, thank you! Thank you also for the kind welcome
Re the clergyman for the wedding - it is listed as A.D. Faunce on the marriage record transcription. I have done a preliminary search for a Bega resident under that name and I can't seem to find anything so I think you may be right.

Re 1872 birth record - informant is listed as his mother Sarah, aged 19 (she was actually born in May 1852 as per her birth index entry and was in fact 20 years old by this time, so evidently she didn't know her exact age.) Father is recorded as "illegitimate." I can't seem to find a baptism record for either John William Thurston/Thirston or John William Thicknesse, which is interesting.

The Thirston vs Thurston difference in records is likely because she was illiterate so whoever was writing it down had to go with how it sounded.
Re her being 21 at the time of marriage - technically yes, however she did not actually know that this was the case. If she thought she was 19 in August 1872, she would have thought she was 20 in July 1873. The record doesn't seem to have any mention of who gave permission for her to marry, though.

Unfortunately, Kameruka & Tarraganda are very close and the Wrens would undoubtedly have flitted between the two regularly so it is difficult to try and work out the father based on who was listed as where. It is a shame that there are no records (thus far, that I can find) on what Sarah was up to in 1870/1871. Was she an employee at Kameruka or Tarraganda? It is entirely possible she wasn't and had simply met one of the Wren sons in town or something like that. One thing I do notice - on John's birth certificate, her usual residence is listed as Colombo (which is now Bemboka.) Given she went back to Kameruka to marry and had a Wren wedding witness it doesn't seem like she was shunned or anything so there would be no reason to leave Kameruka if she had been residing there previously. As mentioned in original post, employees typically lived at Kameruka.

A thought on Samuel Thicknesse - he lived in Bemboka and taught the half-time school there. Kameruka has a school in it and I can see absolutely no reason he would have been connected to the Wrens so clearly the marriage location and the Wren witness was Sarah's doing.

Re Sarah Thurston's parents - her father was John Thurston and her mother was Mary Ann Goulding so no relation to Henry Wren's parents. I know for sure that that is not the connection as my great aunt and I have DNA matches from Elizabeth Dawson (Henry Wren's wife)'s family. From what I can gather, both of Sarah's parents died in November 1865 when she was 13 years old in Back Creek, which is not far from Kameruka and Tarraganda. That does make me wonder about her general circumstances leading up to the conception.

Cheers again!

Hi,

Yes,  I am not a time traveller,  but here's some fairly reliable info that you may not already have. 

Grevilles Post Office Directory 1875
KAMERUKA, a settlement in the electorate of EDEN, in the County of AUCKLAND.
….
Wren, Henry, a squatter.
.....

Hi folks! I hope I'm posting this in the right place. Possibly a long post ahead so bear with me -
So I'm in the process of trying to uncover who the biological father of my 3rd great grandfather, John William Thurston, was. Using DNA matches I've been able to whittle it down to 3 candidates (William Weld, Henry Erasmus and Arthur Alma Wren.) My initial thought was that the child's middle name was a clue, however the mother's father was also John William Thurston. My great aunt's DNA relationships with descendants of Will Wren's also indicate that he was probably not the father. Feeling a bit stumped, I recently decided to order a transcription of John's birth certificate and his mother Sarah Thurston's marriage the year after he was born.
I immediately noticed that her marriage took place in the church on the large station which the illegitimate son's paternal grandfather, Henry Wren, managed. I also noticed that a Henry Wren, either his grandfather OR his possible father Henry Erasmus, was a witness to the wedding. Given she was likely not employed at the station (employees typically lived there which she did not,) I figure holding the wedding at the station and having a Wren as a witness is a relatively decent indicator that she was still pretty involved with the family. The possibility of assault was mentioned to me in terms of the circumstances of conception but I find the idea of getting married at the family's station and having the baby's grandfather as a witness very weird if that were the case.

So all that begs a few questions - why did she not marry the father of the child even though she was evidently still involved with the family? If the witness to the wedding was indeed Henry Erasmus Wren (I have requested the original document to compare the signature to the grandfather Henry Wren's) why would the child's father be a wedding witness? Were the Wrens aware the bub's father was a Wren? What happened in the year between the child's birth and her getting married?
Possibly significant possibly not - Sarah named two of her later children by another hubby Henry and Arthur. Her illegitimate son John gave one of his sons the middle name Arthur, although I'm unsure if he was even aware that he was illegitimate.

I'm aware that none of you are time travellers (assumedly) and obviously can't answer it for sure. I just thought I'd throw it out there and see if anybody had any ideas
Cheers!