An ongoing puzzle and Catholic Churches in the Eastern Cape, circa 1880

[stannarp]

Bit of a vague one, sorry...I am still on the track of my controversial g-g grandparents - Eliza BENNETT and Thomas T SELLER, but have found a lot more about them than previously (https://stannardroseza.blogspot.com/p/eliza-bennett-thomas-theophilus-seller.html), their story so far here.

However, I am trying to track down 2 specific things:
1) did they ever marry?
2) where was my g-grandmother (Ethel Maude) born (supposedly Australia, but I have found no record of her birth there, or in South Africa).

She came from Queenstown, and I believe that there was no Catholic Church in Queenstown in the 1880's, is this correct?

If not, and given that they popped up in Australia by 1885, and I surmise that they left Queenstown in a bit of a hurry (she was 17, he was 22 and already had a wife in Australia); which are the likely Catholic Churches between Queenstown and the closest place they could have embarked for Australia that they could have married in?  I am not sure that any Catholic PR's for South Africa are searchable online, but if I am going to try contacting Catholic Churches and inquiring about records, it would help if I had some likely possibilities.

They were definitely in Australia, as some of their children are born there (and I have found them on birth records), she also sued him for desertion in 1889:  https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/108099425?searchTerm=thomas%20theophilus%20seller&searchLimits=l-state=New+South+Walesl-australian=y

I have searched high and low through Ancestry, and FindMyPast, as well as FamilySearch and cannot find any record of their trip between South Africa and Australia, so I do not have any date references for this.  Nor do I have any references for them coming back to South Africa from Australia in about 1890.

[Gillian Mauchan]

There does not appear to be an indexed marriage on family search. Copies of all marriages from the early 1800's were sent to the relevant government department and are now held by the Cape Archives. These records have all been indexed. That being said some are missing (not a lot)

Familysearch has limited Catholic records - you may need to contact the likely churches.

There is a marriage for Eliza Bennet marrying a Thomas Johnstone in 1883 in the Catholic Church in Queenstown https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSKD-3S6J-H?cc=2821281

Looking at the occupation of Thomas Johnstone - he was a carpenter as was your Thomas - maybe they married under a false name - might be worth trying to compare the signatures wth any documents you have
 
 

[stannarp]

Thank you so much!

It had not occurred to me that he would use a pseudonym, she frequently did (at least twice I've found!), so I guess it should have!

His family were carpenters by trade, as was he, and apparently he did a LOT of carpentry work in Queenstown, so it is quite likely it actually was him!

[Gillian Mauchan]

Also her sister Emily is a witness!

[stannarp]

Yup, so 99.9% it is them! She would be 3 months pregnant, so likely a shotgun wedding, and he already had a wife in Australia, so the pseudonym makes sense!

[stannarp]

This also gives me something to go on to find the birth of my gg grandmother, and shipping records... I've used all HER pseudonyms looking, but now I have one for him too!