Wow! What a connection. Why did Moore get credit and not your ancestor?
The family story is that a governess was going to work for a Moore family in the south - Henry’s first cousin was married to a connection of Moore’s and lived next door; her daughter had children of the right age in VA - and left a copy of the poem at Clement Moore’s home when she stopped over there on the way south. My guess would be that Moore never thought anyone would learn the poem wasn’t his because he told the kids to not give it to anyone. He wrote Christmas poems every year, but they were nasty moralistic little pieces. This one was bright sunshine. But one of the kids gave it to someone and it was published in Troy. Moore waited years and no one took credit. Henry published extensively, but anonymously, and NEVER took credit for his writing. The year Moore finally published it as his own, he wrote the editor of the paper in which it was published and asked if he knew who wrote it. The editor said I heard you did. Moore published it as his own. But he referred to the writing of it in the subjective. “The poem was written.” NOT “I wrote the poem.” But what he published was not the original publication 1823 version, but the MASSIVELY edited one the editor sent him of a version he’d published 7 years later in 1830. Moore never knew the difference.