Discovering who Taylor Swift is secretly related to blew my mind

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Back in another life, during my PGCE, when I was training to be an English teacher, I devised a lesson plan where I taught a group of year eights how to recognise iambic pentameter by getting them to analyse “Rappers Delight” by The Sugar Hill Gang. I may have even done some light rapping myself.

In my mind, I guess I thought it was going to be my “Michelle Pfieffer in Dangerous Minds” moment, but really it just earned me a reputation as “Mr Coogan, that embarrassing teacher”. In the aftermath of that disaster, I made a solemn vow to myself that I would never try to make the study of literature cool and relatable to Gen Z ever again.

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Katy Perry reacts to Bad Blood at Taylor Swift concert
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Back in another life, during my PGCE, when I was training to be an English teacher, I devised a lesson plan where I taught a group of year eights how to recognise iambic pentameter by getting them to analyse “Rappers Delight” by The Sugar Hill Gang. I may have even done some light rapping myself.

In my mind, I guess I thought it was going to be my “Michelle Pfieffer in Dangerous Minds” moment, but really it just earned me a reputation as “Mr Coogan, that embarrassing teacher”. In the aftermath of that disaster, I made a solemn vow to myself that I would never try to make the study of literature cool and relatable to Gen Z ever again.

Until now.

According to genealogy company Ancestry.com, it turns out that Taylor Swift, of both musical and NFL fame, is related to Emily Dickinson, one of the most influential and important poets of the 19th century. The company revealed in a statement that both Swift and Dickinson “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)”.

By my math that makes them sixth cousins, three times removed, which means that’re only very tangentially related, and probably won’t be reconnecting at any family barbeques any time soon (also because, you know, Emily Dickinson has been dead for more than 130 years). But if you’ll allow me to turn this chair backwards and get “real” with you for a moment, I think you’ll find that Tay Tay and Emmy D actually have a lot in common.

There are some superficial similarities, for starters. Both women are known for their relationships to other people who helped shaped the trajectory of their art – Emily Dickinson to her mysterious “master”, and Taylor Swift to… Joe Jonas? Or Harry Styles? It might be both.