Wouldn’t it be great if there was a will for Samuel Jr.? Makes me wonder if his death was unexpected. He was only 65 when he died. I am surprised that there isn’t some sort of Probate record if he died intestate. There should be something in reference to guardianship of the children. Maybe we just haven’t found it yet.
I don’t believe that Sarah was Samuel’s biological child. I think he would have married Sarah long before he did and not wait until the child was almost a year and a half old. I believe he basically became her father by including her in the family (in essence adoption) and she naturally took his last name.
It appears that Sarah was pregnant with Malachi when she and Samuel were married. At least 4 months, but possibly further along. This is another reason I don’t think her daughter Sarah is Samuel’s biological daughter. He married Sarah while pregnant with Malachi, making her an honorable woman (as much as possible with already having a bbd) and prevented the child from being a bastard. If Sarah was his, why wouldn’t he have done the same in that instance?
Its also possible that Daddy Samuel Sr was giving Samuel Jr grief over marrying ‘that tainted woman’ and they purposely created a situation in which they HAD to get married. That might have been the contributing issue with the Will.
In addition, we don’t know what kind of family Sarah came from. Many lineages on Ancestry have her dying in 1806, shortly after Samuel. This is incorrect. Sarah is mentioned in her son, Samuel’s will in 1835. She is also listed in the 1841 census in Chardstock. There is a St. Andrew’s Chardstock burial record for her in 1843, giving her age at death as 80. Doing math calculations, that would put her birth sometime in the years of 1762/3. An extensive search in all the Ancestry websites [I have access to], shows only one [known] Sarah Dunster born during those years. Sarah Dunster, born October 15, 1762 in Kent, England to Jeremiah Dunster and Mary Kedwell.