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From Seki to Kyoto
According to a biographical dictionary, he was from Seki, in Mino, and around the Eiroku era (1558-1570) moved to Nishinotōin, in Kyoto; he used the title of Mutsu no Kami Daidō and was the father of the first Kinmichi, who also moved with him, became Iga no Kami around the Bunroku era and died in 1629. A 1980 report by the Gifu Prefectural Museum of History relates that in 1569 he presented a sword to the emperor and received the title of Mutsu no Kami and the favour of the character 大 (dai), hence Daidō.
When he reached Kyoto is unclear: around Eiroku (1558-1570), according to the biographical dictionary; around Bunroku (1592-1596), according to Japanese Wikipedia; in Bunroku 2 (1593) and with his sons, according to Markus Sesko.
Four sons who were smiths
Markus Sesko writes that Etchū no Kami Masatoshi was the fourth son of the Mino master Kanemichi, who took him to Kyoto with his three elder brothers, Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi, Iga no Kami Kinmichi and Echigo no Kami Rai Kinmichi; there they settled in Nishinotōin and founded the Mishina school (三品派, Mishina-ha). Japanese Wikipedia says of Masatoshi that he was born in Seki, the fourth son of Mutsu no Kami Daidō, and that he received the title of Etchū no Kami in 1597.
According to the Gifu report, the eldest, Iga no Kami Kinmichi, received from the shogunate the office of 日本鍛冶惣匠 (Nihon kaji sōshō), master of the smiths of Japan. The sources disagree on the name of the second Kinmichi: Echigo no Kami Rai Kinmichi for Sesko, Rai Kinmichi for the Gifu report.
Kanemichi and Daidō
The Gifu report takes Kanemichi and Daidō to be the same person, with an “it is said”: he would have signed Kanemichi before the title and Mutsu no Kami Daidō after it.
What tradition says
The smiths of the family claimed to descend, in the ninth generation, from Shizu Saburō Kaneuji, and to be smiths of Oda Nobunaga; Japanese Wikipedia gives this as what they claimed, and no document supports it.
In the history of the sword
After the Ōnin war, many smiths left Mino for Kyoto and other lands. Japanese Wikipedia cites Kanemichi among the Mino smiths of the Warring States period, with Kanesada, Kanemoto, Kanetsune and Kanefusa, and relates that his clan, once in Kyoto, exchanged techniques with the Kunihiro group in Horikawa and laid the technical foundation of the shintō period.
He should not be confused with Tango no Kami Kanemichi (1603-1672), son of Yoshimichi, who worked in Kyoto and later in Osaka and signed 丹後守藤原兼道 (Tango no Kami Fujiwara Kanemichi).