Elizabeth Ann WEBSTER is a known ancestor from the GRO birth certificate of her son James RIGBY, which leads to her marriage to James's father Richard. She's also tied to the family in the 1891 census.
She can be estimated from her ages in censuses to have been born in 1862 or early 1863, and the place Rainford. Her marriage certificate says she was 20 at the end of April 1882 which would suggest she was born in 1861 or early 1862. If I look closely at census dates I might find that there is a narrow range around spring 1862 which satisfies all the references, and/or she may have been out by a year in one or more cases.
There aren't many births registered as Elizabeth Ann WEBSTER so I ordered the only one in Rainford in the right period, and it didn't look right - different father's name, etc. So I ordered a certificate for her next sister Nancy, which confirmed that the parents' names are James and Jane, and that Jane's former name was ROWBOTTOM. See below for details of the marriage I therefore found, but the relevant point here is that it was in 1864 and therefore after Elizabeth Ann's birth.
So now I am looking for a birth of Elizabeth Ann ROWBOTTOM, hopefully in Rainford in 1862, or near offer. I have so far failed to find an Elizabeth Ann ROWBOTTOM in the relevant district (Prescot) in 1860-64 on FreeBMD. But I don't think I have systematically looked for all the possible variant spellings such as RO instead of ROW, TH instead of TT, AM instead of OM. And I'm sure I haven't looked for partial matches on the first name - Elizabeth, Ann or Ann Elizabeth. If there isn't a good date and place match under a variant name, there is an Elizabeth Ann ROWBOTTOM born Q2 1861 in Huddersfield that might be worth ruling out with a checkpoint application (the large place mismatch could be due to 'simplifying' the family history for the census enumerator). I am currently disregarding a Hayfield one in the same Q and an Ashton one in Q4 1863 because they seem to correspond with girls of the right age who aren't mine in the 1871 census.
Or there could be all sorts of less easy-to-find births for her, including being an illegitimate child of James WEBSTER by some other woman, or a child of Jane under a different name - she may have had a short first marriage or some other alias, or had an illegitimate daughter and given her her father's surname.
Later in life I have clearer information. She is with her parents and siblings in the 1871 census (giving age and birthplace) and the 1881 (giving same info plus an occupation, though I'm not sure whether it implies she is employed as a general servant or whether that is just what they said for an unmarried daughter of 18 helping her mum at home). The following year I have her marriage certificate, giving her age as 20 which I think is a year too old, though she didn't claim 21 which is odd. It gives her address as Birchfield Street, Liverpool, which may be a fiction to get married away from her family, or it may be that she'd left home and met her man in the same street. I don't have a precise birth date for her older son, but his age in the 1891 census is consistent with his being born in 1882 and therefore Elizabeth's being pregnant when she got married.
According to the 1871 and 1881 censuses, James WEBSTER was born in 1836 or early 1837 in Lathom. His marriage record just says he's of full age, which would have been true. There are two James WEBSTERs on the IGI christened in 1836 in Ormskirk. One is in March (too early for the census dates I think) and doesn't match the father's name. The other is in December and is to father Richard. But a note of caution - it is a common name so if the date or place I'm expecting are wrong then the match on father's name could easily be just coincidence. I should look up the original record and see if there are any more corroborating or additional details.
James and Jane's marriage certificate gives residence for both, occupation for James, and fathers' names and occupations for both. The occupation is repeated in 1865 on daughter Nancy's birth certificate and in the 1871 and 1881 censuses. The birth certificate and censuses also show the residence at Rainford and at Skelmersdale (though since I haven't got the 1874 birth certificate I only have one reference point for the exact address in Skelmersdale), and the names and approximate dates of the children.
The 1882 occupation, on Elizabeth Ann's marriage certificate, is just labourer not coal miner. I'm not sure whether this is a loss of information due to the second-hand report, or whether he in fact stopped working as a coal miner around 1881/2. That would be quite possible - most likely due to layoff or to age or ill-health - he'd worked for probably 17 years or more down the pit.
Richard's residence in Lathom in 1836 is inferrred from his son Richard's age and birthplace as given in later censuses - this assumes he was living with Richard's mother and that Richard was born at the family home. Counting back from his being a father in 1836 gives a latest likely date for his birth of 1820 but this is very imprecise - it could in principle have been a bit later but is likely to be some years earlier.
Richard's name and occupation (miner) come from James's 1864 marriage certificate; he is not described as dead but this is not conclusive. James at about 28 is old enough to have left home so I'm not ascribing the St Helen's address to Richard.
Attaching a mother called Elizabeth to the family is from the tentative identification of a christening for James in the IGI - see above.
If you are interested in this line I'll be very pleased indeed to hear from you. Email me at deletethis.ianwilliamson161@gmail.com though obviously you edit the email address before you send. Remove everything up to and including the first dot, leaving just my initial, surname and number before the @. Please do not delete the automatically-generated subject line, so that I know your email is not spam. You can add more to the subject if you like but if you delete what appears I may not read your mail.