Question of the Week: Do you have authors or poets in your family tree? [closed]

Question

Do you have authors or poets in your family tree?

Please tell us about them with an answer below. You can also share on your answer on Facebook or use this question image to share your answer on social media.

Comments

Yes both poets and authors.  Gloria Hukle, author of historical novels based in New York State.  My uncle Lynn Russell was poet laureate in Florida.  His brother Willie was also a poet but was killed in World War I before he could publish anything.

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Apparently my family is related to the Whittier poet.

Answer 1

Peter Bradford Benchley, author of Jaws, is the husband of a fourth cousin, once removed.

Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, is a sixth cousin, four times removed.

Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, is a fifth cousin, five times removed.

Mary Margaret "Margaret" Truman, daughter of President Truman, author of Harry S. Truman, a critically-acclaimed biography of her father, and supposedly author of the Capital Crimes series (e.g., Murder in the White House, Murder in the Supreme Court, Murder at the Kennedy Center, Murder at the National Cathedral), although ghostwriter Donald Bain professed to having written the novels, is a half-twenty-first cousin, twice removed.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, poet, is a seventh cousin, four times removed.

Answer 2

F. Scott Fitzgerald is my 7th cousin 3x removed; Ogden Nash is my 6th cousin once removed; William Faulkner is my 6th cousin once removed; John Dos Passos is my 6th cousin 3x removed; Jacobean playwright turned pirate Lording Barry is my 12th great-uncle.

Answer 3

Yes. My tenth great grand aunt was Anne Bradstreet. Through my Dudley line.

Answer 4

My first cousin twice removed wrote a poem "Embroidery",  [[Hastings-4374|Cristel Hastings]] and lived in California, US.  I haven't been able to find out much about her.

Answer 5

Less famous, but more closely related.

My great aunt, Wendy Wood ( https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Meacham-885 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Wood_(artist) ) was primarily known as an Scots Nationalist and an artist, but she was also a prolific writer,. She wrote at least 10 books of prose, including 3 volumes of autobiography, several books about places in Scotland, and about Scottish folktales, and at least 2 books of poetry.

My half uncle, Patrick Hughes ( https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hughes-15382  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Hughes) is best known as a Jazz musician and arranger, but he also wrote many books, including 2 volumes of autobiography, at least 6 books about opera, and at least 6 humorous books in " The Art of Coarse x" series.

Comments

Wow! I heard Wendy Wood speak at a public meeting in the street in the East Neuk fishing village of Crail (where we used to go for our holidays from the 1950s onwards). I was convinced by her arguments - I was about 12 at the time. My mother who already had  Nationalist leanings joined her organisation (the Scottish Patriots, I think) for a while, and later joined the SNP, though by then she was too old to be very active in it.

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Wendy was kicked out of the SNP for being "too radical", which is when she founded the Scottish Patriots.

She never considered herself "too old". When she was 80 she went on a hunger strike for home rule.

Answer 6

There have been a lot of them, but here a few:

My father wrote a book with the very catchy title Notes on Cobordism Theory (1968).  

My great-grandfather Clyde Coon was, in addition to being an engineer, a poet and wrote Rhymes of a Hard-Boiled Engineer. His work is Kipling-esque.

My second cousin, three times moved, Philip Duffield Stong, wrote novels, as well as magazine articles, from the 1920's to 1950's, most of them centered on life in Iowa.  The most well-known was State Fair (1932), which is the basis of the musical.

On my mother's side, my fourth great, grandmother Elise Grafin von Bernstorff wrote Ein Bild aus der Zeit von 1785 bis 1835, remembered for its discussion of life at the Congress of Vienna. 

My sixth great uncles Christian Graf zu Stolberg-Stolberg and Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg-Stolberg were novelists, poets and translators.

Answer 7

The Reverend Kenneth Ervin Hagin (Hagin-99) is my 9th cousin 1x removed. He was a very prolific author of books regarding Christianity. 

Answer 8

A bit Distant, Jane Austen, Fifth Cousin 7 times removed.

I also have John Hyslop who is my 2nd Great Grand Uncle.

He was called "The Postman Poet". He is allotted a place in Murdoch's "Living Poets of Scotland"

Answer 9

[https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sesler-52 My Mother] was Poet Laureate for Tennessee and [https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Graham-17469  My Daughter] is an active writer with over 40 published books on Amazon (LC Taylor, Author).

Comments

Good Morning Rob , just found that Leah & I are 12th cousin , her 11th Grandfather & my 11th Grandfather are Richard Thayer........Small world

Answer 10

Replying slightly under false pretences but much of what I know about my 2xG grandfather comes from the letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, not all of it complimentary! She has also given me a lot of puzzles to solve as she clearly knew a great deal more about his family background than I've been able to discover.

Comments

Oh, and my first cousin once removed wrote whodunnits under the name of Stanley Hyland.

Answer 11

This is a photo I took 6 Dec 2021 of the display in the Greenwood Rising Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is the quote, typewriter and manuscripts written by my great aunt Nora's husband William Cleburn "Choc" Phillips. He was 19 years old when he and four other teenagers followed the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. He later became a Tulsa policeman and wrote what is now published in his book Murder In The Streets.

 

Answer 12

I am a published author. The first in my family I believe.

Answer 13

My daughter, Sue Sinclair, has published 6 books of poetry, the latest, just out, being “Almost Beauty”. I have written or co-authored 10 academic books and about 100 articles.

Answer 14

Yes, [[Faassen-10|Pieter Jacobus Faassen (1833-1907)]]. He was author of many drama plays. He wrote at least one poem. This was a song to restore the friendship between the Netherlands and Belgium, in honor of the visit of the King of Belgium to the Queen of the Netherlands.

Also he was a very famous actor.

Answer 15

Richard Furness Poet laureate  and Robert Louis Stevenson

Answer 16

Joseph Rodman Drake author of "The American Flag" and many more poems..

Answer 17

I came as close to William Shakespeare as one can, as I descend from his sister.  With all of the other surprises, this one thrilled and calmed me as I love his works.

Answer 18

Joshua John Rose born 08 June 1838 St Pancras london England.

Joshua studied engineering under his father, with the Ashford Works Railway, in Kent England.

Later he became an author of engineering books, and had a publisher in England and one in New York.

His books including extensive drawings and facts, and they have been reproduced and used in Universities since the 1800's.

Joshua died 14 Nov 1898 in Manhattan, New York USA

Answer 19

Wilma Faulkenberry Mallicoat compiled " A Mallicoat Family Tree, decendents of William M. Elizabeth Love Mallicoat.  

Ed Mallicoat

Answer 20

My great great aunt Edith Morris born about 1855  in Stoke on Trent Staffordshire UK . She published a book of Poems called “Hours of Meditation “. I do actually own a copy .

Donald Morris my second cousin wrote an illustrated book of nostalgic  photos about the potteries in 1990. I have a copy of that too.