It goes without saying that Taylor Swift is one of the greatest songwriters of our time, as proven by her record-breaking four Album of the Year Grammys and insanely successful Eras Tour. Throughout her career, hardcore Swifties have recognized that the chairman of The Tortured Poets Department draws undeniable comparisons to another timeless writer, Emily Dickinson. Allow me to pull up the (seemingly endless) scroll of receipts:
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As if this could be a wilder turn of events, a new report from Ancestry also reveals that Taylor and Emily have an iconic connection beyond their parallels—the writers are actually related. According to the genealogy company, Taylor and Emily are sixth cousins, three times removed.
This actually... checks out entirely. Read it and weep, per Ancestry's discovery:
Renowned American poets Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson are 6th cousins, three times removed. 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). 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.
So, if you ever thought Evermore was Dickinson-coded, you weren't too far off (especially since the album also dropped on Emily's birthday 👀). Taylor has even addressed her similarities to Emily in the past. During her Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter-Artist of the Decade acceptance speech in 2022, the Grammy-winner said, "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."
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