Hi Joseph,
I am not related to the Hamiltons but they were very close friends with my Dougherty family from Creevagh. Sam Hamilton emigrated to NZ with my mother's Uncle George Washington Searles Dougherty and his bride Kathleen nee Switzer. Excerpt from my GWS Dougherty info below.
Searles Dougherty inherited the smaller of the two Creevagh farms from his father in 1906 but hoped to have a better life by emigrating to NZ along with his friend Samuel Hamilton (whose brother James was later the Mayor of Londonderry). Searles & Samuel booked their passage to New Zealand on the SS Minnedosa and completed (Canadian) Passenger Declarations on 16th July 1920. A month later on 12th August 1920 Searles married Kathleen Elizabeth Switzer at Crossroads Presbyterian Church. The Minnedosa departed from Liverpool on the 27th August 1920 and arrived in Quebec on 4th September. In his passenger declaration, Searles gave his occupation and intended occupation as farmer and stated that he was going to his brother in Auckland, New Zealand.
Actually he did not have a brother in NZ but Sam did.
Kate Hamilton came out to NZ in 1922 ( I will have to look up her tombstone to check the date she died but 1957 sounds right. I never knew her and I was born in 1958). Another excerpt below is from my info on my grandmother Wilhelmina Dougherty who married Oswald Livingston in Oct 1921
. In February 1922 Oswald and Mina were issued with passports at Portsmouth, England and shortly after they emigrated to New Zealand, onboard the steamship Ionic. The Ionic departed on 7th April 1922, traversed the Panama Canal on 25th April and arrived in Wellington on 14th May 1922. Also on the Ionic was Kate Hamilton , who was going to NZ to house-keep for her brother David. However Kate actually went to live with her brother Sam Hamilton in Tawa St., Melville.
GWS & Kathleen Dougherty were still living with Sam along with their newborn son when Kate and my grandparents arrived in NZ and they all lived in the same house until GWS moved to a house round the corner. When my mother (b1925) was about a year old my grandfather built a house next door on land he had purchased from Sam and so my grandparents lived next door to the Hamiltons fro the rest of their lives. Hence I have kate's photo album which must have been given to Mina after Kate died.
If you want to give me your email address I can send you some photos.
Cheers
Linda