The Hyphen Family Lineage

Note: The birthdate confusion and family history of John W. Fisher

John's name was apparently significantly more common than I might have expected, and there are at least a few other men born and resident in Ohio whose birthdates were quite close to his - one of them possibly even on the same date. Determining John's birthdate was somewhat confusing because of a suspected error in one of the records.

The first record I found for John that contained a birthdate reference was his marriage record in 1916 to Mary Elizabeth Logan in Monroe Cty, Ohio. The indexed record gives his birthdate as 31 Mar, and his birth year as 1931; the original document (verified by image) corroborates the indexed information. This marriage record also clearly names his parents, so I have no doubt this record applies to our John W. Fisher.

Following that find was an indexed birth record, itself drawn from a published index, that reports John's birthdate as 20 Jun 1890. This names his parents, as well, but I will note that two other birthdays adjacent to his in the published index were reported with the same filing date (25 Jun 1891), and the one immediately above John's listing is for Jesse Feicht, whose birthday was reported as 31 Mar 1891. Further searches for Jesse have confirmed that this was his birthdate, so I believed Jesse's is accurately recorded and, for some reason, John's was not.

Looking through the US Census records - specifically, the scanned images of the original forms - gives the following for John:

1900 - reported as age nine (form dated 2 Jun 1900), month of birth given as March.
1910 - reported as age nineteen (form dated 9 May 1910).
1920 - reported as age twenty-eight (form dated 3 Jan 1920).

As such, I believe his birthdate to have been 31 Mar 1891. I have not found any further records (such as a WWI draft registration card or a death record) that would have clarified things further.

I will note that there is a John W. Fisher (b. 31 Mar 1891, d. 27 Nov 1957) buried in Westwood Cemetery in Oberlin, Lorain Cty, Ohio, with wife Ella M. Fisher (b. 19 Jun 1891, d. 11 Oct 1984); additionally, there is a John Warren Fisher (b. Aug 1890, d. 5 Nov 1969) with wife Allie Mary (Ott) Fisher (b. 28 Mar 1893, d. 11 Oct 1965) buried in Prairie Chapel Church Cemetery in Coshocton, Coshocton Cty, Ohio. The man who shares the same birthdate as our John lived several counties to the north, and the second man (from the neighboring county) was the son of Emanuel and Amanda Fisher. I feel confident that neither of these are the man in our family tree, but the coincidence of the same birthdate is certainly a source of potential confusion.

As for John's family, the only record I can find for him after his marriage in 1916 is the aforementioned 1920 US Census listing placing John (along with wife Mary and one-year-old son Kenneth) in Ohio Twp, Monroe Cty, Ohio - presumably on or near Mary's family farmland. After that record, I can find no other trace of John or Mary, though Kenneth appears as an eleven-year-old grandson in the household of his paternal grandparents Isaiah and Clara in the 1930 US Census. After this, I have found no later confirmed record for Kenneth, nor do I have a complete birth name or vital dates for him.

At this point, I have assumed that John and Mary had only one child (Kenneth), and that the two of them had both died while Kenneth was still a young boy. I believe Mary's parents may also have died by that time, though I have not confirmed this at this time. I have not found any death records or burial information for either John or Mary, and cannot say whether John's line has continued or ended.