Taylor Swift is related to this long-dead, famous poet

nypost.com:

According to a report, Taylor Swift, 34, can now boast an illustrious ancestor — Emily Dickinson.The “Shake It Off” singer and the 19th-century American poet are sixth cousins three times removed, genealogy company Ancestry told “Today.”“Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th-century English immigrant (Swift’s ninth great-grandfather and Dickinson’s sixth great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut),” Ancestry said.“Taylor Swift’s ancestors remained in Connecticut for six generations until her part of the family eventually settled in northwestern Pennsylvania, where they married into the Swift family line.”Dickinson, who died in 1886, penned nearly 1,800 poems during her lifetime.

With 243 songs, written and co-written, under her belt as of November 2023, Swift is catching up.The timing of the family revelation couldn’t be better.

Swift’s latest album, out April 19, is titled “The Tortured Poets Department.” The singer has actually referenced her long-lost cousin before. “If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the Quill genre,” she said during an acceptance speech to the Nashville Songwriters Association International organization.The similarities end there, though.

Dickinson wasn’t at all well-known in her own time, but that couldn’t be less true of Swift.In February, the singer took home a record fourth album of the year Grammy — besting Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder.