The Fisher surname is a common one, and many unrelated families have the name. My own is through my great-grandmother Martha (née Fisher) McPherson, and has been traced back to Henry Fisher, but no further. He was born in Maryland, where his parents presumably lived; see Henry’s article for theories of his immediate origins.
With documentation limiting us, we turn to DNA.
The Y chromosome is passed unchanged, excepting occasional mutation, from father to son, and thus can trace a male line, which generally corresponds to a surname.
I have an autosomal DNA match to a male-line (named Fisher) great-grandson of Robert Taylor Fisher, son of Richard and Mary Fisher. He has an appropriately large DNA match to my mother (31 cM) and even larger to my maternal aunt (~52 cM); he is their second cousin, twice removed. He has been tested as belonging to Y haplogroup G-Z30771, also known as G-Y2036. Thus, I conclude that that is the haplogroup of this Fisher family.
Care was needed here. For example, I have an autosomal match to another male named Fisher, but the DNA shows he is not of this Fisher family. A problem with common surnames is the greater possibility of red herrings.
There is a Fisher DNA project with several groupings of testees.ref While none of them is known to correspond to our family, one testee is intriguing: a descendant of Lewis Fisher of Essex County, Virginia. He is tested as far as G-P303, which is a larger group containing G-Z30771 (I cannot see if he has tested deeper SNPs). Essex County is close to the Maryland border.
This testee is also a close match to a Fisher family from County Somerset, England. Thus, if he is a member of the same Fisher family I am descended from, we have a clue to the family’s origins in England.
However, this is short of proof. G-P303 is a large grouping that may contain unrelated (or, rather, very distantly related) families. In order to be confirm or disconfirm this theory, we’d need a known Fisher relative to take a Y chromosome STR test.