Linen Hall Library, Belfast, July 2016

The Linen Hall library in Belfast dates from 1788, and houses a

Blackwood's page for Seneca Hadzor.

wealth of historical and archival information about Ireland. One unique collection to be found there is the Blackwood pedigrees, comprising over ninety volumes of handwritten family trees and notes painstakingly put together by Reginald Blackwood (died 1961), a former Director of the Library. 

The records have never been digitilised, and it would seem that the only way to gain access to them is to head to Donegall Square and examine them in person. What then emerges is truly a labour of love and dedication, and it was astonishing to find in one of the volumes, records that follow the Hadzor family of Downpatrick all the way through to Hetty Jane Owen’s grandmother, Maria Harriett Robinson.

A second outstanding resource is Ros Davies’ County Down website, which has collated a wealth of information about County Down. Records on Family Search, the Mormon Salt Lake City genealogy database have provided further detail, and together all these sources and others to be provided in due course have helped put together the tale of the Downpatrick Hadzors and related families.

It was of some comfort, sitting in the calm of Linen Hall Library to find that the problem of the relationship between Dr. Seneca Hadzor and Lieutenant John Hadzor had given Blackwood pause for thought. 

Twenty-seven years separate their respective births, and John was born seven years before Seneca Hadzor’s marriage to Ruth Bankes in 1702. This led Blackwood who had originally put down John as a son of Seneca to append a note, querying whether he might not actually be a brother. If so, the answer would probably be that he was a half-brother, from a previous marriage of Seneca’s father. An alternative of course would be that Blackwood had it right the first time and that Lieutenant John Hadzor was indeed Seneca's son, but from a previous marriage.  

Both Seneca and John were doctors, both served in the British army in Gibraltar, and both lived in Downpatrick. It is quite impossible to suppose that they were not extremely closely related.