ROBYN BECK / Contributor; Culture Club / Contributor
How Are Taylor Swift and Poet Emily Dickinson Related? Ancestry Reveals They Are Distant Cousins
Taylor Swift and legendary poet Emily Dickinson have more in common than their way with words. The women are actually distant relatives, according to Ancestry.
How Are Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson Related?
The pop superstar and late poet are sixth cousins, three times removed, per Ancestry in a March 4, 2024, statement to Today.
“Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th century English immigrant (Swift’s 9th great-grandfather and Dickinson’s 6th great-grandfather, who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut),” the genealogy company told the outlet.
The report noted that Taylor’s ancestors lived in Connecticut for six generations before settling in northwestern Pennsylvania, “where they married into the Swift family line.”
In genealogy, sixth cousins are people who share a great-great-great-great-great-grandparent. Three times removed means the cousins are three generations apart from each other.
Taylor Swift’s Possible References to Emily Dickinson
Swifties have long speculated that Taylor’s ninth studio album, Evermore, was inspired by the late poet.
Fans’ reasons for believing the December 2020 album was influenced by Dickinson include the fact that it was announced on December 10, which is the prolific writer’s birthday.
One of Dickinson’s poems, titled, “One Sister Have I in Our House,” even ended with the line “Sue – forevermore!,” further convincing fans that the album was a nod to the iconic wordsmith.
Taylor Swift’s Quotes About Emily Dickinson
Years after the album’s release, the Grammy winner actually referenced Dickinson directly in relation to her writing process.
“If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain,” Taylor said while accepting Songwriter-Artist of the Decade at the Nashville Songwriter Awards in September 2022, “that’s me writing in the quill genre.”
Taylor also told Entertainment Weekly in a December 2020 interview about her eighth studio album, Folklore, that the album’s cover came from a “very specific” vision of a “girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830, which happens to be Dickinson’s birth year.
Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ Album
The poetry-related bombshell comes on the heels of Taylor’s February 2024 announcement of her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department. Taylor shocked Swifties with the album title and April 19, 2024, release date while accepting her 13th career Grammy during the event’s February 4, 2024, broadcast.
Shortly after she accepted her Best Pop Vocal Album award for Midnights, Taylor went backstage and shared the cover art for The Tortured Poets Department, as well as a handwritten note, via social media.
The note, which many fans believe to include lyrics from her upcoming album, ended with, “All’s fair in love and poetry … Sincerely, The Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department.”
One day later, Taylor shared the 17-song track list for the album, which featured the words, “I love you, it’s ruining my life” alongside the song titles.
She has since made several editions of the upcoming album, including one with a bonus track called “The Black Dog,” available for preorder.
