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Taylor Swift, the internationally-loved pop star who recently announced her upcoming album “The Tortured Poets Department,” was discovered to be related to iconic poet Emily Dickinson, NBC’s TODAY Show announced on Monday, March 4.
According to Ancestry, who revealed the star-studded lineage to TODAY, Swift and Dickinson are both descendants of a 17th-century English immigrant, who was an early settler in Connecticut, in the Hartford County town of Windsor.
That immigrant is Swift’s ninth great-grandfather and Dicksinson’s sixth great-grandfather – making the two writers sixth cousins, three times removed.
While Dickinson’s line eventually moved to the Massachusetts city of Amherst, located in Hampshire County, Swift’s ancestors stayed in Connecticut for another six generations before settling in Pennsylvania (where, in 1989, the singer was born).
Fans may not be surprised by this discovery: when Swift announced the release of her album “evermore,” she did so on Dickinson’s 190th birthday (December 10).
Additionally, one of Dickinson’s poems, “One Sister Have I in Our House,” featured the use of the word “forevermore,” leading fans to believe the poet may have inspired the album. (Many more eagle-eyed fans have cited even more, some subtler, nods to Dickinson.)
"The Tortured Poets Department" is slated to be released on Friday, April 19.
To see the full article from TODAY, click here.
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