Duck family tree in The Little Big Book of Disney

[Matilda]

So, here's the tree from Monique Peterson's The Little Big Book of Disney (2001). It was already referred to here on a couple of other threads--TitusMcDuck linked to it on the AMJ thread, and Scrooge MacDuck has also referred to it.

Much of this tree clearly derives from Rosa's family tree. Does anyone have any idea where the non-Rosa elements on this tree came from? Peterson herself, or did she get them from someone else? Here are the elements which do not reproduce Rosa's family tree:

1) the inclusion of Rumpus--that's obvious, no source needed, especially since the tree doesn't show how he is related to anyone else

2) the marriage-with-a-question-mark of Matilda to Ludwig von Drake--presumably she got that from Rosa's speculation

3) the idea that Ludwig is descended from Mother Goose?!?

4) the use of "Dumbella" rather than "Della"--again, we know where that comes from

5) the idea that Cornelius Coot is descended from Andold Wild Duck--You'll have to help me here, because I haven't saved copies of the Andold stories. How is Donald's descent from Andold described? My guess would have been that he would be Humperdinck's ancestor, not Elvira's and Cornelius's. But probably the stories just indicate that he is Donald's ancestor and not Scrooge's, so that the ancestry is on the Quackmore Duck side, and they don't say which of Quackmore's parents is descended from Andold. (I am amused to see that Andold's German name is "Sir Donald McDuck"!)

6) the idea that Fred is Daisy's brother and possibly (that line is dotted) AMJ's father--no relation stated between "Cousin Fred" and Daisy in the sole story in which he appears; and "Flipism" makes it fairly clear that AMJ are the children of Daisy's sister, not her brother

7) the idea that Fred and Daisy are both Donald's second cousins once removed, by virtue of being "great grand niece and nephews (sic) of Elvira Coot"--Fred in his one appearance is said to be Donald's cousin (which could be taken to be short for some more complicated connection, if we want to include him in the tree at all). I know there have been various theories about Daisy being related to Donald (because they both have the last name Duck?), but I don't accept any of them, and this particular "second cousin once removed" theory was never espoused by anybody that I know of. Plus, if you say Daisy and Fred are Elvira's rather than Humperdink's great-grand-niece/nephew, that doesn't even explain how Daisy got the last name "Duck"! (TitusMcDuck proposed that maybe Elvira's niece married Humperdink's nephew!) Not to mention that making them Elvira's "great grand niece and nephew" puts them one generation lower on the tree than Donald--one more generation between them and Elvira's parent who is the common ancestor. True, that's possible especially when families were large and siblings spread out in age, but why go there? (It's this generational step down that makes them Donald's second cousins once removed.)

[Scrooge MacDuck]

3) Ludwig Von Drake claimed to be the grandson of Mother Goose in one episode of the "Disneyland" TV show, and showed a portrait of an elderly Mother Goose (looking a lot like him) with baby-Ludwig on her knees as evidence. A few Disney records of updated Mother Goose songs also featured depictions of the Ludwig-like "Mother Goose" on the covers.

5) I have no idea why Cornelius Coot is said to descend from Andold McWildduck. I'd always assumed he was related to the Clan McDuck, end of story.

7) The Fred/Daisy cousinhood was indeed a slip-up for all the reasons you cite. My updated theory (incorporating the fact that Ludwig Von Drake was said to be Daisy's uncle in a French family tree, and the idea that Ludwig was Donald's father's brother but took his mother's family name because he wanted to be a little rebel) about how Ludwig and Daisy are related to Donald is that Humperdink was briefly married to a Mrs Von Drake, whom he divorced before he got married with Elvira; Humperdink and Mrs Von Drake's firstborn son was Otto Duck (the name comes from Johannes A. Grote's family tree), who, due to being born when Humperdink and Von Drake were married, was called "Duck"; and Ludwig Von Drake, who was born after the divorce and thus called "Von Drake". Otto later married and became Daisy's father (Daisy's father as seen in "Donald's Diary" does look quite a bit like Ludwig.) This makes Donald and Daisy half-second-cousins (huh… is there a name for that?) and ties in with Ludwig being both Daisy's uncle as per the French family tree and "a kind of uncle" to Donald.

[drakeborough]

Jan 20, 2017 5:02:14 GMT Matilda said:

So, here's the tree from Monique Peterson's The Little Big Book of Disney (2001). It was already referred to here on a couple of other threads--TitusMcDuck linked to it on the AMJ thread, and Scrooge MacDuck has also referred to it.

Much of this tree clearly derives from Rosa's family tree. Does anyone have any idea where the non-Rosa elements on this tree came from? Peterson herself, or did she get them from someone else? Here are the elements which do not reproduce Rosa's family tree:

[...]

1-2) Not much to say.

3) Seems a stupid idea to me.

4) I would have preferred to see Della instead of Dumbella, but at least the latter name wasn't invented from scratch.

5) I know very little about his stories, but Wikipedia says "He is a lookalike and probably ancestor to Donald Duck", so it seems it's not even clear if he's ancestor or not. If he is, I would also have made him Humperdink's ancestor (maybe it was just a typo, but it's "Humperdink" and not "Humperdinck").

6) True, AMJ should be the daughters of Daisy's sister.

7) I dislike the idea of Donald and Daisy being related, but if they really had be related in this tree, it would have made more sense for them to be on the same generation.

Anyway, I see that this tree was briefly discussed in the DCML back in February 2002. Rich Bellacera's message:

Hi all. I'm still having problems related to my ISP, but here is something you might find interesting, especially Gilles. I found this interesting bookrecently released and available at my local bookstore called THE BIG LITTLE BOOK OF DISNEY by Monique Peterson.

While there's not a whole lot that is really new in it, there is a familial link placing Daisy's (possible) brother Fred (?) as the parent of April, May & June. I'm not sure what the source of this claim is though.

Anyhow, here it is for what it's worth.
home.onemain.com/~xephyr/special/DuckFam.gif

Don Rosa's message:

I checked this address, and I'm dumfounded and perplexed. What a mess!!! This author has taken the characters off my Duck Family Tree, some named by Barks and some newly created (out of necessity for the Tree) and named by me, somehow also gotten the info out of my *private* notes which have never been printed in any Disney publication (having Ludwig Von Drake married to Matilda McDuck) and tossed in elements from a few other sources, and jumbled it all up into a mess. Then pulling one bit of idiocy out of thin air and having "Mother Goose" (who I think is a human, anyway) being an ancestor of one character, which is stupid enough, but the ancestor of a Duck rather than Gus or Gladstone! What on earth caused this?
I bet most of it is a result of the author swiping info off of a fansite like Gilles'. Did anyone ask permission for this, Gilles?

Gilles Maurice's message:

No, they didn't. When I've first read about this book in a message posted here, a lot of details striked me much:
*this book provided links to some of our sites, so its autor must know our sites, and so mine
*it uses the fact that daisy is grandma's grandniece. I have been , I think, the first and the only one to have this idea about daisy being grandma's grandniece in my tree. I immediately told myself that they stole me the idea!!! I didn't told you about this, because you were so enthusiastic about having links to your sites in this book, but I have been really choked about this. Even if they didn't quote me as a source, they could at least add a link to my site!!!
Well,...this is what life is made of.... ;-)

With the agreement of Rich, I will add him in my site because this is still a tree, but I don't like it at all !!!
If somebody can buy this ***** book for me, this would be nice, because, as a collector, I must do this (yuck) ;-)

[Scrooge MacDuck]

I see. Though again, Mother Goose wasn't pulled out of thin air, as an official Disney work did state she was Ludwig Von Drake's grandmother.

[drakeborough]

Jan 20, 2017 11:16:57 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

I see. Though again, Mother Goose wasn't pulled out of thin air, as an official Disney work did state she was Ludwig Von Drake's grandmother.

Thanks for the info (I started writing my previous message before yours was published). In that case, I can't blame Monique Peterson for stating she is Ludwig's grandmother, but I blame the creators of that "Disneyland" episode for making a stupid decision. I mean, Mother Goose is a literary character from the 17th century. I am not against the fact that she is drawn as an antropomorphic animal rather than a human, but to have her live in the same universe as the Donald Duck cast and even being Ludwig grandmother... no thanks, in my headcanon there's no place for this fact.

[Matilda]

Thanks much, drakeborough! I knew someone here would have some relevant info, and that exchange from DCML answers a bunch of my questions. "Daisy as Elvira's grandniece" comes (uncredited) from Gilles Maurice's tree--note that GM said "grandniece," not "great-grandniece," so the generational mismatch is presumably Peterson's mistake. And thanks, Scrooge MacDuck, for the source of the "Ludwig descended from Mother Goose" idea. I feel OK about not knowing about that, since Rosa didn't know it, either!

Now, does anyone have the Andold stories on hand, to be able to check what they do or don't say about Andold's relationship to Donald? (Of course, it's possible they say different things in different localizations!)

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Re-Mother Goose: Gilles Maurice put up the theory that in the Disneyland episode, Ludwig von Drake is just bragging like he often does, and we musn't take it any more seriously than when he claims to have invented ragtime or when Scrooge says he sold maps to Marco Polo (!).

[drakeborough]

Jan 20, 2017 17:41:20 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Re-Mother Goose: Gilles Maurice put up the theory that in the Disneyland episode, Ludwig von Drake is just bragging like he often does, and we musn't take it any more seriously than when he claims to have invented ragtime or when Scrooge says he sold maps to Marco Polo (!).

I like that. Sure, he must be bragging: I can't imagine Mother Goose really existing in the same universe as Donald and the others, let alone living in modern times and being Ludwig's grandmother.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jan 20, 2017 17:48:45 GMT drakeborough said:

Jan 20, 2017 17:41:20 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Re-Mother Goose: Gilles Maurice put up the theory that in the Disneyland episode, Ludwig von Drake is just bragging like he often does, and we musn't take it any more seriously than when he claims to have invented ragtime or when Scrooge says he sold maps to Marco Polo (!).

I like that. Sure, he must be bragging: I can't imagine Mother Goose really existing in the same universe as Donald and the others, let alone living in modern times and being Ludwig's grandmother.

I can, but it's a matter of opinions. As for living in modern times… not so modern. Ludwig seems to be approximately as old as Scrooge, so it's easy for Mother Goose to have lived in the 18th century.