John Tansey's records are sketchy. He was born 1859-60 in Ireland and came to America before 1877. He married Mary Ann McDowell and fathered five children: Mary Alice, Agnes Marie, Margaret Jane, John Henry, and Henry Joseph. While Mary Ann and the children lived in Jersey City, New Jersey, often with Mary Ann's mother, Alice Denehy McDowell Carroll, John sometimes worked away from home -- at one point as a brass finisher in Brooklyn, New York.
In May 1896, John received word at work that Mary Ann had been badly burned by an overturned pot of boiling water and had been taken to St. Francis Hospital in Jersey City. Whether he may have already been ill is not known, but, according to the family story, he raced to be with his wife, became ill himself, and, four days later, died of pneumonia in the same hospital where his wife was a patient. Mary Ann never recovered from her burns. She also died at St. Francis in September, 1896.
For awhile, the eldest child, Mary Alice, and her new husband, Daniel Culnen, cared for the baby of the family, Henry Joseph, who was later sent to an orphan farm in the New Jersey countryside. She also assumed the responsibility of her parents' burials.
Agnes Marie and Margaret Jane entered St. Mary's Orphan Asylum on Jersey Avenue (where a Mary Tansey taught) and John Henry went to St. Michael's Orphan Asylum on Pavonia. Although living at different locations, the children were all within blocks of each other.
It has been possible to recapture some of the fragmented history of this Irish-American family through family stories, government records, directories, and Catholic church records. There are still gaps in the records back to Ireland.
I always have a twinge of regret thinking of John and his family. A young man arrived on the east coast with his American dreams. He saw hard work and optimism building the cities around him and joined-in. He followed what he knew to be the life rules of work, family, and church, but the rules did not help him survive 19th century overcrowded housing and inadequate medicine. Did he ever miss the Irish Connaught (Connacht) countryside, as he lived amid the concrete, steel, and brick of New York and New Jersey? Did he even remember it well enough to miss it? As with most Irish luck, his did not hold, except for this --his descendants remain and we do remember what we know of him and his family.
The Tansey name is believed derived from Mac An Taniste (taniste or tanaiste meaning successor) and appears with the spelling variations: Tansey, Tansy, Tanzey, Tanzy. If you have information or a question about any Tansey, check the links below:
Tansey Surname List
