In the last note we had reached Balthasar Blankenbaker's farm. The name immediately following is Ludwick Fisher (Lewis Fisher), and the name is no surprise, as Lewis married Anna Barbara Blankenbaker, one of the two daughters of Balthasar. So, it appears that Lewis was living on his father-in-law's place. Lewis had reasonable expectations of inheriting some of Balthasar's property, for Balthasar had only the two daughters and no sons.
The only surprise is seeing the name of Lewis here is that he appeared also earlier in James Pickett's list as Lodowick Fisher, right after George Tenner and Robert Tenner, and just before George Teter. Again, we have a duplicated name as, we did for Theobald Crisler. And again, I am not positive what interpretation to place on the two Lewis Fisher names.
My guess or hunch, but definitely not a fact, is that there were two Lewis Fishers, father and son. I am also betting that the wives of the two Lewis Fishers were both Anna Barbaras. In a situation such as that it becomes hard to distinguish people.
I believe that an examination of the baptismal sponsors for the Christopher Zimmerman family in Sulzfeld will show that, on one occasion, the sponsors were Lewis and Anna Barbara Fisher. This would have been much too early to be the Anna Barbara who was the daughter of Balthasar. My guess is that this family is the parents of the Lewis Fisher who married Anna Barbara Blankenbaker.
Let me use the designations, Sr. and Jr., for the two Ludwigs. I believe that Ludwig, Sr., was the father of at least two sons in Virginia, one of whom was Ludwig, Jr. The family of Ludwig, Jr., can be determined accurately, but there are some Fishers who are left over, who do not appear to be members of Ludwig, Jr.'s immediate family. One of these was Elizabeth, and the other is Nicholas.
Some people believe I am not realistic in this proposal, and I must admit that they may be right. But I do think that there is a possible avenue for research. Since Lewis Fisher's origins in Germany have never been found, in spite of the hype which surrounds him, I sure would start with the Sulzfeld church records and start looking in that immediate area.
(Photos of Sulzfeld, and the surrounding countryside, are on the Sulzfeld Photo Page .)
The suggestion was made that the two Theobald Crislers might have been twins. It certainly is a possibility, and I regret not having thought of that myself. In any case, we have to contend with two men, each of whom appears to have been on the tithe list twice. I do doubt that the Lewis Fishers were twins.
(05 Dec 00)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.