Surviving Duck family members

[Baar Baar Jinx]

We've discussed on other threads the possible fates of Quackmore/Hortense/Della/Matilda, and how some or all of them are possibly dead, but maybe on this thread we can discuss Duck family members who could easily still be alive in present-day continuity without it being problematic.
For example, we know that Donald's uncle Eider (Grandma's younger son) and, according to Rosa, father of Whitewater (and, he begrudgingly suggests, Fethry) is still alive, since he sends Donald a falcon in an early Barks ten-pager, and there's no reason his wife can't be, too.
Also, Gladstone's parents ... Grandma's only daughter Daphne and her husband Goostave Gander ... could easily still be alive. Barks had Gladstone be adopted after his parents "died from overeating at a picnic", but I think Rosa abandoned that idea as being too silly a long time ago.
These characters don't suffer from the same problems being alive that Quackmore/Hortense/Della/Matilda do, i.e., why aren't they ever mentioned, or more involved in Donald/HD&L's lives, or appear at Christmas/Thanksgiving gatherings (they are related to Grandma, but being married, could be alternately spending holidays with her and in-laws). Also, their involvement with Scrooge and Donald would naturally be peripheral. It would be great if they could appear in modern-day Duckburg.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

According to Picsou Wiki, Daphnee and Goostave are probably dead, because in one 1950 story, Gladstone looks for his closest living relative and finds that it is Grandma Duck. And before you ask, no, the page does not say which story. On the other hand, in the (I think unfairly) generally disliked Dangerous Currency, she was shown, quite alive, in the streets of Duckburg, battling the Slime along with various other characters.

We also know that Fanny Goose, née Coot, is alive, since Donald receives a letter from her in Donald's Cousin Gus; a Dutch Disney website also claimed that Luke Goose was still alive as well and was a successful genealogist, who is the in-universe author of Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree. 

As you said, Eider is known to still be alive, so there's no reason for Lulubelle Loon not to be as well.

Uncle Upsy Duck may or may not still be alive, as Huey, Dewey and Louie seem to have never heard of him when Donald first mentions him.

Speaking of parents, there's no reason why Gladstone's anonymous brother who fathered Shamrock could not be around.

April, May and June's parents are clearly still around, since it's pretty clear they don't live with Daisy and are just visiting. If, as some books state, their father is, in fact, Donald's cousin Fred Duck, then we've even already seen their father. That only leaves their supposedly-alive mother. There's still hope, after all, since Amelia Fieldmouse did appear.

[drakeborough]

Matilda is definitely alive per "A Letter from Home", though I know you don't accept that story as canon, Baar Baar Jinx. Anyway, at the end of it Matilda and Scrooge make up, and Donald's nephews wonder if they can invite her in Duckburg to stay at their house. So far, it hasn't happened yet: Rosa did only three more stories after that and then retired, and other authors haven't used her, at least not in present time.

For Quackmore, Hortense and Della it's hard to say, and at the moment I don't have anything new compared to what I wrote in the other topic.

As for other characters: in 2009 Don Rosa was asked "... and Gladstone's parents and the others... are never shown in the family reunions because they're dead or what?" His answer was:

I don't know. I've never had reason to consider it. But since I *did* decide that Gladstone inherited his luck from his mother, and since his mother was raised by Elvira ("Grandma") Duck on the farm, she was surely brought up to be a hard worker -- Grandma would not tolerate any slacker kids not doing their chores! So, with her luck combined with her willingness to work hard (unlike her lazy son), Gladstone's mother and her husband are probably SO wealthy by this time in their lives that they have retired and moved far away to Portofino.

Don never used Daphne in a story set in the present, but she appears in 2011's "Dangerous Currency" (in this panel), though the story is a mess canon-wise, and the bad colouring makes it harder to tell it's her. The same panel also shows Eider (who we knew was alive thanks to Barks' ten-pager) as well as Gus' parents Luke and Fanny (we knew the latter was alive thanks to Donald's Cousin Gus and Gus' first comic appearance in a Taliaferro strip).

[drakeborough]

Jan 8, 2017 14:26:50 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

According to Picsou Wiki, Daphnee and Goostave are probably dead, because in one 1950 story, Gladstone looks for his closest living relative and finds that it is Grandma Duck. And before you ask, no, the page does not say which story.

That's strange: in 1950, Gladstone only appears in 3 stories, all of which are by Barks: "Trail of the Unicorn", "Wild About Flowers" and "You Can't Guess". The latter is the only one with Grandma Duck, but I don't recall any discussion about who is Gladstone's closest living relative.

[Matilda]

Yes, I vote strongly for AMJ's parents being alive and well. While some stories show them as living with Daisy (wasn't that the case in stories in the Dutch Daisy Duck comic?), it was firmly established in my child-mind by a Barks-drawn one-pager ("Small Fryers") that they just visited Daisy on occasion. I prefer not to believe that AMJ are blood relatives of Donald, so I would reject the theory that Donald's cousin is their father. No point in having everyone be related! Is that theory proposed because we know AMJ's last name to be "Duck"? *DO* we know AMJ's last name to be "Duck"? Rosa didn't give them a last name on the English-language expanded Family Tree with the "Notable Characters" sidebars. And do we know they are the offspring of Daisy's sister and not Daisy's brother?

By the way, Donald's cousin Fred Duck doesn't appear to be in INDUCKS' character list (I checked under "Fred" and under "Cousin"). Is he a one-shot character?

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jan 8, 2017 15:09:06 GMT Matilda said:

Yes, I vote strongly for AMJ's parents being alive and well. While some stories show them as living with Daisy (wasn't that the case in stories in the Dutch Daisy Duck comic?), it was firmly established in my child-mind by a Barks-drawn one-pager ("Small Fryers") that they just visited Daisy on occasion. I prefer not to believe that AMJ are blood relatives of Donald, so I would reject the theory that Donald's cousin is their father. No point in having everyone be related! Is that theory proposed because we know AMJ's last name to be "Duck"? *DO* we know AMJ's last name to be "Duck"? Rosa didn't give them a last name on the English-language expanded Family Tree with the "Notable Characters" sidebars. And do we know they are the offspring of Daisy's sister and not Daisy's brother?

By the way, Donald's cousin Fred Duck doesn't appear to be in INDUCKS' character list (I checked under "Fred" and under "Cousin"). Is he a one-shot character?

Well, he is a one-shot who appeared in the Freddy Milton story Art is a Relative Thing, where he is described as a distant relative of both Donald and Gladstone. In Monique Peterson's licensed book The Little Big Book of Disney, published in 2001, Fred is included as Daisy's brother and AMJ's father, with both Daisy and Fred thus being distant relatives of Donald (distant enough that it's not creepy).

[Matilda]

Jan 8, 2017 15:12:50 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Jan 8, 2017 15:09:06 GMT Matilda said:

Yes, I vote strongly for AMJ's parents being alive and well. While some stories show them as living with Daisy (wasn't that the case in stories in the Dutch Daisy Duck comic?), it was firmly established in my child-mind by a Barks-drawn one-pager ("Small Fryers") that they just visited Daisy on occasion. I prefer not to believe that AMJ are blood relatives of Donald, so I would reject the theory that Donald's cousin is their father. No point in having everyone be related! Is that theory proposed because we know AMJ's last name to be "Duck"? *DO* we know AMJ's last name to be "Duck"? Rosa didn't give them a last name on the English-language expanded Family Tree with the "Notable Characters" sidebars. And do we know they are the offspring of Daisy's sister and not Daisy's brother?

By the way, Donald's cousin Fred Duck doesn't appear to be in INDUCKS' character list (I checked under "Fred" and under "Cousin"). Is he a one-shot character?

Well, he is a one-shot who appeared in the Freddy Milton story Art is a Relative Thing, where he is described as a distant relative of both Donald and Gladstone. In Monique Peterson's licensed book The Little Big Book of Disney, published in 2001, Fred is included as Daisy's brother and AMJ's father, with both Daisy and Fred thus being distant relatives of Donald (distant enough that it's not creepy).

Thanks for the references! If Fred is a distant relative of Donald & Gladstone, that might be OK with me. But Peterson's book alone won't get it into my headcanon. (Nonetheless I'm going to order myself a used copy!)

What is the evidence for AMJ's last name? It looks like on the Norwegian Rosa tree's sidebars, they do have the last name "And (Duck)" (if I'm making it out right from a tiny image), but as I said, on Rosa's English-language family tree sidebars they have no last name.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

I think Gladstone's family dynamics are interesting ... he considers himself a "Gander" and has a snobbish, elitist disdain for his mother's side of the family ("Us Ganders have never associated with you Ducks!""We Ganders have never worked for anything in our lives!"). The way Rosa drew Goostave Gander on the Duck Family Tree suggests aristocratic breeding and arrogance. Thus, the Ganders being totally estranged from the Ducks makes sense (not sure where Daphne fits in all this; she did visit Grandma's farm when Gladstone was very young in "The Sign of the Triple Distlefink" but Goostave was nowhere in sight, and maybe visits to Grandma's farm became a bone of contention between her and her husband in later years). It would probably have worked better overall if Gladstone inherited his luck from his father rather than his mother (since his defining characteristic now comes from the Duck family), but if that had been the case Daphne would have been completely uninteresting, so Rosa probably felt compelled to make that decision when he was writing Life of Scrooge. A story that explores the relationship between the Ganders and the Ducks would be fascinating. I'd like to know more about the context of that 1950s Dutch story that suggested that Gladstone's nearest living relative was Grandma; but even if that is the case, I would be willing to discount it.

Re: April, May and June; has their last name ever been revealed to be "Duck?" We know they're Daisy's sisters' daughters (established by Barks in their first appearance), but apart from Rosa's off-page desire to make their father Daisy's brother (and thus give them the last name "Duck"), I'm not sure if that's ever been revealed. I actually have no love for these characters as I don't think they bring anything to the Duck universe, but since Barks created them, I feel compelled to acknowledge them.

Also, didn't Daisy's mother make a cameo in an early Barks ten-pager?

Re: "Dangerous Currency", to call that story a "continuity mess" is being very charitable. I safely exclude it from consideration, as I would all things DuckTales-related. Donald never joined the navy, and the nephews never lived with Scrooge, in my mind. DuckTales is alternate-reality.

Personally, I consider Rosa's family tree a starting point but not necessarily exhaustive. In my headcanon, fundamental relationships cannot change (like the identity of parents and number of siblings/children of Scrooge, Grandma, Donald and HD&L) but everything else could be explored. For example, wouldn't Fergus' brother "Pothole" McDuck, apparently the first of the clan McDuck to emigrate to the United States, have had a family? He doesn't seem to in Life of Scrooge, but maybe he later got married and had kids. If he had any sons, that would put an end to Scrooge's claim to be "the last of the clan McDuck" (since daughters apparently don't count) but that might be a neat way to explain Gideon without violating the Rosa version of things, if you are so inclined (make him a cousin of Scrooge's and not a brother). And what about Jake; was he just freeloading off Fergus, or did he have his own family at some point?

[Matilda]

Baar Baar Jinx wrote:
Personally, I consider Rosa's family tree a starting point but not necessarily exhaustive. In my headcanon, fundamental relationships cannot change (like the identity of parents and number of siblings/children of Scrooge, Grandma, Donald and HD&L) but everything else could be explored. For example, wouldn't Fergus' brother "Pothole" McDuck, apparently the first of the clan McDuck to emigrate to the United States, have had a family? He doesn't seem to in Life of Scrooge, but maybe he later got married and had kids. If he had any sons, that would put an end to Scrooge's claim to be "the last of the clan McDuck" (since daughters apparently don't count) but that might be a neat way to explain Gideon without violating the Rosa version of things, if you are so inclined (make him a cousin of Scrooge's and not a brother). And what about Jake; was he just freeloading off Fergus, or did he have his own family at some point? <end quote>

In my mind, it wouldn't hurt to have a character or two in the family tree be "confirmed bachelors," i.e., gay. Let Disney comics join Marvel in allowing for diversity! Or confirmed spinsters, looking at you, Matilda, though I personally prefer to have her married to Ludwig Von Drake off-camera.

[Matilda]

Baar Baar Jinx wrote: Re: April, May and June; has their last name ever been revealed to be "Duck?" We know they're Daisy's sisters' daughters (established by Barks in their first appearance), but apart from Rosa's off-page desire to make their father Daisy's brother (and thus give them the last name "Duck"), I'm not sure if that's ever been revealed. <end quote>

Oh, right, in "Flipism" she doesn't explicitly say that AMJ are her sister's children, but they must be, because Daisy is visiting her sister and there they are. I had forgotten that. My sense is that their last name has not been revealed, and that if their parents showed up in a story, that story could establish the name of Daisy's sister, the identity of her husband, and AMJ's last name.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jan 8, 2017 15:26:48 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Re: April, May and June; has their last name ever been revealed to be "Duck?" We know they're Daisy's sisters' daughters (established by Barks in their first appearance), but apart from Rosa's off-page desire to make their father Daisy's brother (and thus give them the last name "Duck"), I'm not sure if that's ever been revealed. I actually have no love for these characters as I don't think they bring anything to the Duck universe, but since Barks created them, I feel compelled to acknowledge them.

Also, didn't Daisy's mother make a cameo in an early Barks ten-pager?

How do we know they are Daisy's sisters' daughters? I don't recall that being established. At any rate, French calls them "Lili, Lulu et Zizi Duck" as well.

As for Daisy's mother… that's sort of an urban legend. There is a Barks ten-pager where Donald comes to Daisy's house, only to be answered by an elderly duck lady sweeping the floor that Daisy is out shopping (or something similar - it doesn't matter). Some people assumed her to be Daisy's old mother, but she could just as well be the cleaning lady (or, for that matter, Grandma Duck; she looks very similar to Barks's use of an off-model Grandma in an early Christmas series). That question has never been answered officially.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jan 8, 2017 15:40:47 GMT Matilda said:

In my mind, it wouldn't hurt to have a character or two in the family tree be "confirmed bachelors," i.e., gay. Let Disney comics join Marvel in allowing for diversity! Or confirmed spinsters, looking at you, Matilda, though I personally prefer to have her married to Ludwig Von Drake off-camera.

I agree with you fully on Matilda's eternal spinsterhood. I never liked the theory of Ludwig being married to her. This seems to have originated with Rosa, but honestly, they seem so mismatched. I'm not sure how Ludwig is related to Donald ... does he even need to be? If so, maybe on Humperdink's side? As to LGBT representation, I would've cited Matilda as a potential candidate, except that Rosa has a young Matilda lusting after cowboys, unless that's all an act.  And didn't Pothole have a lady friend in "Master of the Mississippi?" Jake, though ...

[Matilda]

Jan 8, 2017 15:49:25 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Jan 8, 2017 15:40:47 GMT Matilda said:

In my mind, it wouldn't hurt to have a character or two in the family tree be "confirmed bachelors," i.e., gay. Let Disney comics join Marvel in allowing for diversity! Or confirmed spinsters, looking at you, Matilda, though I personally prefer to have her married to Ludwig Von Drake off-camera.

I agree with you fully on Matilda's eternal spinsterhood. I never liked the theory of Ludwig being married to her. This seems to have originated with Rosa, but honestly, they seem so mismatched. I'm not sure how Ludwig is related to Donald ... does he even need to be? If so, maybe on Humperdink's side? As to LGBT representation, I would've cited Matilda as a potential candidate, except that Rosa has a young Matilda lusting after cowboys, unless that's all an act.  And didn't Pothole have a lady friend in "Master of the Mississippi?" Jake, though ...

Donald introduces LVD to Daisy as his uncle in the Taliferro strip panel shown on his character page in INDUCKS. And didn't Donald call him "Uncle Ludwig" on Wonderful World of Disney? Others will know! Anyway, Rosa wanted to marry him to Matilda because he said it was the only way to get Ludwig to be Donald's uncle. But I'm not sure why one couldn't hypothesize another sister of Quackmore who somehow met the Austrian immigrant when he came to teach at the local university and married him. Four is not an excessive number of children for someone of Elvira's time and place. Does anyone know if there's a reason why Rosa didn't go this route?

But you're right, Matilda's lusting after cowboys doesn't fit with her being lesbian.

I've been OK with her being married to Ludwig--they could have married late in life and maintain pretty independent lives, especially when Ludwig is on sabbatical or traveling for research after retirement, as professors do. I could see her finding his bluster amusing. But I'm also OK with her remaining unmarried. I've given Matilda various lives in my mental fanfic.

I'll have to look at "Master of the Mississippi" again--I don't remember Pothole's lady friend.

[RobbK1]

Jan 8, 2017 14:26:50 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

According to Picsou Wiki, Daphnee and Goostave are probably dead, because in one 1950 story, Gladstone looks for his closest living relative and finds that it is Grandma Duck. And before you ask, no, the page does not say which story. On the other hand, in the (I think unfairly) generally disliked Dangerous Currency, she was shown, quite alive, in the streets of Duckburg, battling the Slime along with various other characters.

We also know that Fanny Goose, née Coot, is alive, since Donald receives a letter from her in Donald's Cousin Gus; a Dutch Disney website also claimed that Luke Goose was still alive as well and was a successful genealogist, who is the in-universe author of Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree. 

As you said, Eider is known to still be alive, so there's no reason for Lulubelle Loon not to be as well.

Uncle Upsy Duck may or may not still be alive, as Huey, Dewey and Louie seem to have never heard of him when Donald first mentions him.

Speaking of parents, there's no reason why Gladstone's anonymous brother who fathered Shamrock could not be around.

April, May and June's parents are clearly still around, since it's pretty clear they don't live with Daisy and are just visiting. If, as some books state, their father is, in fact, Donald's cousin Fred Duck, then we've even already seen their father. That only leaves their supposedly-alive mother. There's still hope, after all, since Amelia Fieldmouse did appear.

Well, Egmont didn't allow me to call Sadstone Gander Gladstone's identical twin brother.  If I wanted to use him in a story, he had to become an identical twin cousin.  Their reasoning was that the readers would wonder why he had never been around all thse years of comic book stories.  I gave a good reason for that: "He left (banished himself) so that his unnatural bad luck wouldn't continue to be a danger to his close family."  That explanation was not accepted.  So, it appears that close relatives to the major characters can't be used, except in flashbacks to long ago.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jan 8, 2017 16:45:30 GMT RobbK1 said:

Jan 8, 2017 14:26:50 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

According to Picsou Wiki, Daphnee and Goostave are probably dead, because in one 1950 story, Gladstone looks for his closest living relative and finds that it is Grandma Duck. And before you ask, no, the page does not say which story. On the other hand, in the (I think unfairly) generally disliked Dangerous Currency, she was shown, quite alive, in the streets of Duckburg, battling the Slime along with various other characters.

We also know that Fanny Goose, née Coot, is alive, since Donald receives a letter from her in Donald's Cousin Gus; a Dutch Disney website also claimed that Luke Goose was still alive as well and was a successful genealogist, who is the in-universe author of Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree. 

As you said, Eider is known to still be alive, so there's no reason for Lulubelle Loon not to be as well.

Uncle Upsy Duck may or may not still be alive, as Huey, Dewey and Louie seem to have never heard of him when Donald first mentions him.

Speaking of parents, there's no reason why Gladstone's anonymous brother who fathered Shamrock could not be around.

April, May and June's parents are clearly still around, since it's pretty clear they don't live with Daisy and are just visiting. If, as some books state, their father is, in fact, Donald's cousin Fred Duck, then we've even already seen their father. That only leaves their supposedly-alive mother. There's still hope, after all, since Amelia Fieldmouse did appear.

Well, Egmont didn't allow me to call Sadstone Gander Gladstone's identical twin brother.  If I wanted to use him in a story, he had to become an identical twin cousin.  Their reasoning was that the readers would wonder why he had never been around all thse years of comic book stories.  I gave a good reason for that: "He left (banished himself) so that his unnatural bad luck wouldn't continue to be a danger to his close family."  That explanation was not accepted.  So, it appears that close relatives to the major characters can't be used, except in flashbacks to long ago.

Yes, but you were trying to introduce a new sibling; whereas Shamrock's existence gives a reason for another brother to exist. This worked for Mickey's sister Amelia, who was allowed to appear in a couple of Egmont stories because Freddie and Mortie were already established character since the 30's.