Hi again,
I think Sarah's parents were recorded as THIRSTON and GOLDEN.
The online index for NSW BDM :
1850 Marriages
Volume 36B, line 214.
I note that Volumes 1-44 are Church of England and that Vol 36B covers both marriages and burials.
https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/collections-and-research/guides-and-indexes/births-deaths-and-marriages-registers-1787-1856
Yep, those are certainly Sarah's parents. I have seen the mother's name variously spelled Goulden, Golden and Golding. I am unable to work out why they died around the same time - possibly severe illness or something of the sort.
Re circuit theory - to me it makes more than enough sense. If that were not the case, why would she have waited a year to marry? Having a child born illegitimate was certainly not looked upon kindly, although it does appear that it's possible the Wrens were aware of John's paternity and did not shun her and the child.
Re JW Thicknesse AIF record - incredible stuff, I was not aware of his service in Egypt and Greece. It appears he contracted malaria at one point and went absent whenever he felt like it
But yes, he was also known as John William Thicknesse. I suppose Samuel must have adopted him in order to make him legitimate.
Re the Thurston brothers - yep John and Andrew were Sarah's brothers. I believe she was the eldest child. I have DNA matches on Ancestry descended from both of them so that is certainly them. I wonder where and how they lived after the death of their parents? Seemingly, the proverbial hit the fan.
That list is interesting. I was not aware there were other Dawsons at Kameruka. I assume T. Dawson is probably Elizabeth's older brother Thomas. The problem is that that local area is incredibly small so moving between Candelo, Kameruka, Tarraganda, Corridgeree, Bega etc etc wasn't exactly an arduous task and our Sarah and the beau could have been absolutely anywhere.
One thought I did have - Arthur Alma was younger than Sarah, in reality by 2 years but by Sarah's estimate of her age at least 1-1.5 younger. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't the father but given the child's conception was not in an assault circumstance and clearly there was some connection between her and the dad, it does seem more "conventional" that the bloke would be older. Another thing - Arthur never had any other children. He was married to his first wife from 1884ish until she died in 1923. It's possible this was by choice but also possible that he (maybe her) was infertile. Then again - as mentioned before, Sarah named two later sons Henry and Arthur and John gave one of his sons the middle name Arthur, so who knows. How likely would you say it is that Sarah would have told him he was illegitimate/who his father was?
I figure it may be impossible to know who the father was with certainty but with any luck maybe an educated guess could be possible.
Thanks for the awesome research help by the way!
