I finally managed to read a copy of Marovelli, Paolini and Saccomano’s Introduzione a Paperino (1974), which is one of the first deep analyses of Barks’ work.
Interesting stuff, Sim! Although, I don't think any of Barks' stories suggested a shared ancestry between Scrooge, Elvira, and Daisy.
Also, Elvira not being Donald's grandmother is weird.
That map is a great reminder of how un-American most maps of Duckburg are. American cities in real life are a dreadful affair of straight lines and single-family homes. I don't think there's a single stroad in Duckburg!
There are a lot of relatives at this point in the tree, but after searching I don't seem to find the characters from the parody Il mistero dei candelabri. Like a lot of others early parodies, this one is framed as if the Miserables of Victor Hugo was based on the story lived by the ducks' ancestors.
$crooge starts telling about Paperjean, one of his french "direct ancestors" ($mD calls him "avo"). Paperjean was a good man, tells $mD, but one day he stole a piece of bread because hungry. He was caught and sentenced with 2 years. He tried to evade various times, always been caught, making his sentence much longer than it originally was (a calendar on the wall show the years from 1817 to 1824 plus a couple others while mentioning those years). He finally eluded the search while jumping in the sea one night, and everyone thought he drowned. He was rescued by a kind wealthy man, and when Paperjean was caught stealing from him, he helped him, giving Paperjean two candelabra. Inspired by this act of kindness, Paperjean decided to start a new life, establishing in Montreuil a commercial activities with the money from the stolen merch, which went very well ($mD says it is thanks to "the innate talent of us Paperoni" it could refer either to 'mcDuck' proper or the $crooge's ancestry in general?). He changed name to Madeleine and was made mayor of the town. When one day he met inspector Javier (the one who always caught him when he evaded), Paperjean-Madeleine left the town with his money. (this is at least 2 years after the false drowning, because Javert said "anni fa" = "years ago", plural)
Escaping with his treasure, Paperjean hid it in a hollow tree in Montfermeil's forest. Here he met Cosetta, a child that was adopted by the Thenardier couple (Pete and Trudy lookalikes), who owned a tavern in the forest. They tried to stole Paperjean of his money after drugging his water, but Cosetta allerted him, and they two escaped to Paris, while Paperjean adopted Cosetta. After another meeting with Javier, Paperjean was able to escape him and start a new life under a new identity, Leblanc.
Time-skip to 1832. Cosetta is grown now, and she has become spoiled with how much Paperjean pampered her. She went to the best college in Paris. One day, after she insisted for them to go outside, they met Paperino di Pontmercy, noble, poet and dreamer. He wanted to marry Cosetta, but Paperjean-Leblanc refused it when learning he was poor, because he didn't want Cosetta to return to her childhood of poverty.
Cosetta, sad for the refusal, cried outside the name of the Thenardier, and the BB of this time heard it. They were searching for them, with simil-Pete Thenardier and Canard, Rk-lookalike and Napoleon's secretary, because the candelabra were the key for the treasure of Carlo Magno.
All the characters went on a treasure hunt, which resulted in the villains being all arrested and the treasure given to Paris' mayor, who used it to build orphanages. Paperjean learned that his prison time was ended, because five years prior his Majesty graced him. So he returned to Montrevil, where he become mayor again and lived a rich and quiet life. He lived a lot, surrounded by Cosetta, Paperino and his many grandchildren (there are four shown).
The timeline is kinda confused: the story says that Leblanc-period is in 1832, and this Cosetta is 10 years after Thenardier-Cosetta, which would place their escape in 1822. So, at minimun the fake drowning must have been in 1820, which would contrast the calendar pages. So either those are wrong, or the 10 years is an approximation.
No biological descendants of Paperjean are shown, so probably he had none. If we still go with him being a direct ancestor of $mD, probably he descends from one of Cosetta's children. Here a possible tree (I also added the Thenardier, since they too for a period adopted Cosetta)
On the inducks page I see that there is an english version of the story printed in 2009/2010, which means there are official english names for the ancestors. I haven't found the issue where the story was printed, but online I've found what should be the first page of the story, and it has almost all the official names
link of the disney wiki (it is just a stub, and lists young Cosetta as Webby, which I don't find mentioned anywhere else, not even in the articles of the reprinting of the story. It also misidentifies Trudy Thenadiers as an "unknown woman", while the wiki already has a page on Trudy)
On the inducks page I see that there is an english version of the story printed in 2009/2010, which means there are official english names for the ancestors.
Unluckily, that is one of the few volumes in that collection that I don't have. I'd be glad to help out if any other Englsh name from those is needed, but I wouldn't rely much on the translation, as it seems they had little knowledge of Disney comics characters, at least Italian ones (eg. in this volume, Umperio is called Detective Duck).
Speaking of Umperio, in Paperoga e le indagini a tutto campo(Salvagnini/Turconi, 1998), Grandma Duck mentions she and Gus are visiting cousin Bedelia.
There are a lot of relatives at this point in the tree, but after searching I don't seem to find the characters from the parody Il mistero dei candelabri. Like a lot of others early parodies, this one is framed as if the Miserables of Victor Hugo was based on the story lived by the ducks' ancestors.
I was told a long time ago that Picjean didn't have any children, which led me to exclude him from the tree. I was however unaware that Cosetta was said to be an ancestor.
Cosetta would have to have been born sometime around 1810-1815. Fergus McDuck was born in 1835 and Scrooge in 1867, so for Cosetta to be a direct ancestor of Scrooge, and for the line relating Picjean to the McDuck-characteristics to make sense, Cosetta would have to occupy Molly Mallard's position on the tree... which is already occupied. Even if that worked, Cosetta and Paperino's children would have the surname Di Montmercy, which Fergus does not.
In other words, I don't know how to make this work and I don't know where to place Cosetta and her family.
There are a lot of relatives at this point in the tree, but after searching I don't seem to find the characters from the parody Il mistero dei candelabri. Like a lot of others early parodies, this one is framed as if the Miserables of Victor Hugo was based on the story lived by the ducks' ancestors.
I was told a long time ago that Picjean didn't have any children, which led me to exclude him from the tree. I was however unaware that Cosetta was said to be an ancestor.
Cosetta would have to have been born sometime around 1810-1815. Fergus McDuck was born in 1835 and Scrooge in 1867, so for Cosetta to be a direct ancestor of Scrooge, and for the line relating Picjean to the McDuck-characteristics to make sense, Cosetta would have to occupy Molly Mallard's position on the tree... which is already occupied. Even if that worked, Cosetta and Paperino's children would have the surname Di Montmercy, which Fergus does not.
In other words, I don't know how to make this work and I don't know where to place Cosetta and her family.
It wasn't said that Cosetta was an ancestor, $mD said that Paperjean was. He used both "antenato" (generically 'an ancestor') and "avo" ('direct ancestor'). But since no other family of him was shown, I assumed that Cosetta was the only way (being her Paperjean's adopted daughter). If Paperjean had some other children, I guess they would have been shown at the end, when the narrator said he retired with his family around.
To resolve the date problem, you can write Paperjean away as another of the indirect ancestors, as you did before. If you still want to use the static Rosa time, this isn't and will not be the only problem that you have to solve.
On the inducks page I see that there is an english version of the story printed in 2009/2010, which means there are official english names for the ancestors.
Unluckily, that is one of the few volumes in that collection that I don't have. I'd be glad to help out if any other Englsh name from those is needed, but I wouldn't rely much on the translation, as it seems they had little knowledge of Disney comics characters, at least Italian ones (eg. in this volume, Umperio is called Detective Duck).
Yes, often those english translations seems to mix up characters and invent new things. I just pointed the official translation because at this point the tree is a mix of different languages, official and fanmade translations. So sticking to a precise rule (use english names, or original names, or fantranslating them) would help to clear some confusion.
Speaking of Umperio, in Paperoga e le indagini a tutto campo(Salvagnini/Turconi, 1998), Grandma Duck mentions she and Gus are visiting cousin Bedelia.
Is Bedelia the cousin of Grandma or Gus?
Unknown, the only mention to her is in the first page of the story: Grandma and Gus are leaving the farm by car and she salutes Fethry saying: "avevamo già programmato questa visita alla cugina Bedelia!" (= we had already planned this visit to cousin Bedelia!). I guess she might be GD's cousin, otherwise Gus could have visited her on his own.
I couldn't see him on your tree LP , but in S 80144 we can see Grandma Duck's grandfather.
I am attaching a few scans from different publications here; note that in the Brazilian one he is mentioned as Tio Donaldo (Uncle Donaldo).
Great! He'll fit best as Elvira's maternal grandfather. I currently have the No Hunting-Grandpa in that spot, but he can easily be moved back a generation. That way I can include his wife from Your Host, Donald Duck as a separate character from Hortensia too!
I'll probably do a new update some time later this week!
Update #15 I've removed the unnamed old lady McDuck-relative. Let's pretend she's Matilda McDuck. Also I've removed Evelyn McDuck as she was apparently only created in translation. The younger lady McDuck has been placed as the daughter of one of Scrooge's cousins on the O'Drake side.
Gertrude's surname is corrected to "Ganzenlever".
I've added Donald's great-granduncle Zebedeus, Elvira's cousin Bedelia and her maternal grandfather Donaldo. The No Hunting-Grandpa and his wife from Your Host, Donald Duck has been moved back a generation to be the latter's parents. Picjean is now on the tree as Scrooge's ancestor, but I decided to leave out Cosetta and her family, as she is adopted. Their inclusion would require me to add a bunch of other characters who have at one point or another been adopted by a character, for example Bubba the Cave Duck or the genie from the DuckTales movie.
I found these scans on the interwebs. I think they are from that one story that showed Cornelius and his wife. Anyways, is anyone of these relatives, or just random people?