Don's Duck Family Tree

[Mattias Hallin]

DON and PER:

            as per promise: here goes! There is, to my mind, one snag in the
Duck Family Tree in your final draft, Don and as it is now published, namely
the respective places of "Aunt Fanny (Coot)" and her son, Gus Goose. As I read
the tree, Fanny is the daughter of Grandma Duck's brother, i.e. Grandma's
niece, and so Gus becomes her great-nephew. This makes Gus a not particularly
close relative of Donald - his second cousin, actually; and all this doesn't
quite tally with how things are presented in the original comics. In "Donald's
Grandma Duck" (VP 1), Grandma says Gus is her "nephew", while in Taliaferro's
"Donald's Cousin Gus", Gus is Donald's "cousin", and the letter to Donald is
signed "Aunt Fanny".

My original suggestion to you, Don, was to make Fanny the SISTER of Grandma,
and Gus the son of Fanny, who would then have been born "Coot" and married
"Goose" (as she is also in the published tree), and this is how it appeared, or
so I seem to remember, in the intermediate versions of the tree that you showed
me. If this was so, Fanny would be the aunt, not of Donald, but of his father -
but she'd be an aunt to his line of the family, at least, while Gus would be
cousin also to Donald's father, and thus first cousin once removed to Donald -
which is at least a closer kind of cousin than a second one. This is BTW
exactly how "Cousin Cuthbert Coot" is related to Donald in the tree: Cuthbert,
too, is the first cousin ofDonald's father. But from the way you've placed
Fanny, the only one she'd be aunt of is the possible children of Cuthbert Coot!

To me, it makes much more sense from all possible points of view to have Fanny
be Grandma's sister, and so on, instead of Grandma's niece, etc. Huccome you
changed it this way? I mean, there is no actual REASON from the point of how
things are presented in the original comics, is there?

I have some comments, too, about paternal/maternal uncles in the Swedish
translations,, but I'll get back to you n that issue... Ah has to work, you
know!!!

All my best


Mattias