Notes on some assorted relatives and Barks's Duck family tree.

Per Starb{ck starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE
Thu Mar 25 01:43:06 CET 1993


Fethry Duck
~~~~~~~~~~~
Andreas Gammel:
> And there's another cousin who wears a green woolen cap. 

Harry Fluks:
> I understand his cap is not always _green_ in other countries; one
> Englishman once asked for foreign names of "the guy with the red woolen
> cap".

Here in Sweden he wears pink.  The only time I've seen Fethry in an
American publication (WDC 509) it was red.

Gladstone Gander
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harry Fluks again:
> On the first pages of 'Race to the South Seas', a Barks story from 1949,
> the relation between Donald and Scrooge, and Gladstone and Scrooge is
> explained. I don't know it by head, but I can look it up. As far as I 
> remember, Gladstone is a "distant" cousin, i.e. a son of a cousin of
> Donald's father, or so.

Here are the relevant quotes:

Donald: "And my uncle on my mother's side is Scrooge McDuck, the
	richest man in the world!"

Gladstone: "So what?  Scrooge McDuck is *my* mother's brother's
	brother-in-law, and I'm going to get a *big* cut of his
	fortune, too!"

Barks's Duck Family Tree
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Those quotes agree with that Duck Family Tree which Barks made in the
early fifties.  It is published in Carl Barks Library, Set VI, p. 476,
and I won't try to redraw it here, but the information in it is:

Old "Scotty" McDuck had the following children:
  Matilda McDuck who married Goosetave Gander,
  Scrooge McDuck,
  Hortense McDuck.

Grandma Duck had the following children:
  Quackmore Duck,
  Daphne, who married Luke the Goose.

Hortense McDuck and Quackmore Duck married and had Thelma Duck (the
mother of Huey, Dewey and Louie) and Donald Duck.

Luke the Goose and Daphne had one son, Gladstone, who was orphaned
when Daphne and Luke overate at a free-lunch picnic.  Gladstone was
then adopted by Matilda McDuck and Goosetave Gander!

Gus Goose was a nephew of Luke the Goose "making him a very distant
`cousin' of Donald".

Other trees
~~~~~~~~~~~
Harry:
> There is at least one family tree published in a book about Donald Duck's
> life (published in Holland in 1984 - or was it 1987?), the story and
> tree are of Italian origin. In the story, Scrooge is Grandma's brother, and
> Donald is an _adopted_ child (Grandma never got married).

I guess you (and in a later post Fredrik Ekman) mean "Buon compeanno,
Paperino" by Marco Rota which we have discussed here before?  (Swedish
title: Mitt liv i ett "aggskal.)  There is no family tree in the
Swedish edition though.  The question of how Scrooge and Grandma are
related is a crucial point when making a Duck family tree.  I prefer
the solution in Barks's tree where they aren't related at all.  After
all, Scrooge grew up in Scotland, surely (?) Grandma didn't!
I have some more things to say about Grandma, but that'll have to wait
to a later post.

Rich:
> The only comic I could find with a picture of the Duck Family
> Tree was in UNCLE DONALD AND HIS NEPHEWS: FAMILY FUN #38 (Dell, 1960)
> On the tree is listed Donald, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Gyro, Gus, Scrooge, Grandma,
> Gladstone, Daisy, April, May, June, and three I am not familiar with:

So how are they related according to that tree?

Harry  > There must be other 'origin' stories of the Duck family...
Fredrik> I have read at least two. One American that was published in
Fredrik> Sweden in the late 60's (I think). The Swedish title
Fredrik> translates to "This is you life, Donald Duck".

Four color #1109 (1960), reprinted in Gladstone's Donald Duck Comic
Digest #4.  Doesn't say much about how the ducks are related though.
--       "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden.  email: starback at student.docs.uu.se
 "Life is but a gamble!  Let flipism chart your ramble!"



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