Good to hear that saga is over!

I think getting your wife a new ID and name could cause problems when you come to apply for a visa extension based on marriage to a Thai national. Personally I would only try that route as a last resort. It may not be easy to change her name back to her current Thai surname because the district office will only approve that, if no one is using that name in the national database or she can prove she is a member of that family. Since she will have just shown DNA evidence that she is a member of another family, they won't let her have it both ways.

Thai marriage certificates certainly have Thai ID numbers on them today and I suspect they have done since the ID card system was introduced way back when. They only started computerising ID records in the last few years and finding your wife's records will require a manual search which they probably couldn't be bothered to do. I would try again and she could complain to the Department of Provincial Administration that overseas district offices and go to the Administrative Court, if DOPA refuses to help. If this gets nowhere, you have to go to the Immigration Bureau's Thai nationality verification department. They will require a DNA test too, or a certificate of adoption. If she was informally given away and the foster parents fraudulently got her an ID card without adoption papers, then it is back to plan B and getting the ID card in Udon using her real persona. Then you probably will have to perjure yourself at the Oz Embassy to get the affirmation of freedom to marry paper, although it would be an case if they caught you for committing bigamy with your own wife under a new name.

Anyway legitimising the ID and passport that were issued before seems best, if it can be done. Good luck.

I think getting your wife a new ID and name could cause problems when you come to apply for a visa extension based on marriage to a Thai national.

Thanks Arkady.

You are right but she already has her new ID. Like mentioned in this thread she had been searching for her records over a few years but we had not gone to the alternate government offices you mention.

No idea how to rectify the marriage problem with this new ID, like you say I'd be a bigamist

The only solution at the moment I can see is for me to stay in Thailand ("unmarried") on a retirement visa.