The Duck Family

The Duck family is the term used for the relatives of Donald Duck. Throughout the years, the relationships of Donald's relatives has been revised and modified by authors, although there are some consistent relationships directly with Donald's closest relatives. This group is also related to the Coot, Goose, Gander, and the McDuck families.

Background
The Duck family's roots date back to 1618C when Captain Thirtyville, his nephew Donald Ducktargen and his nephews Houie, Louie, and Dewie (the Three Cadet Muskateers), moved to America to establish their clan.

Pintail Duck
Pintail Duck first appeared in "Back to Long Ago" in ''Uncle Scrooge #16''. He is the oldest member in the Duck family tree. According to the story, he and his friend Matey Malcolm McDuck buried a treasure of potatoes for Captain Loyal Hawk of The Falcon Rover. He drowned three days later and was reborn as his descendant Donald Duck.

Lulubelle Loon
Lulubelle Loon is the wife of Eider Duck.

Upsy Duck
Upsy Duck is Donald's uncle from "Mastering The Matterhorn". In the story, one of Donald's triplet nephews mentions that Upsy was their great uncle. According to this story, he gained the nickname "Upsy" because he was a great mountain climber. Donald clearly refers to Upsy Duck as his uncle on the fourth page of this comic story. He says in the first panel of this page, "But Uncle Upsy didn't give up easily!". Since Quackmore, Daphne and Eider are the only children of Grandpa Duck (Humperdink Duck) and Grandma Duck (Elvira Coot), according to Don Rosa, Upsy may be considered as a son of Humperdink before marrying Elvira, who would be his second wife. In this case, Humperdink probably would be some years older than her.

Sheriff Dan Duck
Sheriff Dan Duck (aka Cousin Dan) is an old cousin of Donald who happens to be sheriff of a Western town called Bent Spur Gulch. Dan originally has dark grey thick eye-brows, a long dark grey mustache and long dark grey hair on the left and right sides of his head. He is generally showed holding a crutch.

Dudly D. Duck
Dudly D. Duck is a cousin of Donald who appears in the comic story "Why All the Crabby Ducks" by Vic Lockman and Mike Arens. He is a flopped architect and inventor who was responsible for the construction of the "Jog Tunnel", which annoys the citizens of Duckburg because it really has a jog in it, and for the bad planning of Duckburg's streets. Therefore, Dudly became very unpopular and was forced to live isolated in a lonely street, including his name was forgotten until the day that Donald discovers who planned the "Jog Tunnel", and then his girlfriend Daisy Duck reveals who is Dudly Duck through the newspaper where she works as reporter. A reporter rival of Daisy ends up discovering that Dudly is related to Donald, who in turn becomes unpopular too.

Nancy Duck
Nancy Duck is a female cousin on father's side of Donald. She appears in the comic story "A Likely Story" by Bob Gregory, where Daisy Duck thinks that Donald is having a romantic meeting with a glamorous and beautiful actress who is also called Nancy Duck in his own home. Like Upsy and Dim-Witty Duck, Nancy also tends to keep her eyes half-opened.

Coot Kin
The surname "Coot" had been used on several ducks by various artists, usually for characters who were relatives of Donald Duck but were not part of the Duck family or the Clan McDuck. When Don Rosa created his Duck Family Tree in 1993, he included the Coots used by Carl Barks and himself as Grandma Duck's family are descendants of Cornelius Coot. It was Rosa's idea to use Coot as Grandma's maiden name, and to have Cornelius Coot as an ancestor of Donald.

Clinton Coot
Clinton Coot was first mentioned in Uncle Scrooge Adventures #27 in the story "Guardians of the Lost Library", first published in July, 1994. He was introduced as the son of Cornelius Coot and the founder of the Junior Woodchucks, inspired by the book given to him by his father. However, there is a Junior Woodchucks story called "Right is Might", first published in Huey, Dewey and Louie Junior Woodchucks #1 on 1966, where one of Donald's triplet nephews sees a big picture adorning a camping tent and recognizes the figure in the picture as being a certain Pioneer O'Duck, described by one of them as "beloved founder of the Junior Woodchuck movement".

In The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck it is revealed that he is the father of Grandma Duck. In Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree, Clinton is married to Gertrude Gadwall and their two children are Grandma Duck (Elvira Coot) and Casey Coot.

According to Rosa's timelines, Clinton Coot was born in 1830, and died in 1910, aged 80.

He is named after Bill Clinton, who was running for President of the United States when Don Rosa created the character.

Gertrude Gadwall
Gertrude Gadwall is the wife of Clinton Coot, mother of Elvira Coot (also known as Grandma Duck) and Casey Coot, grandmother of Quackmore Duck, Daphne Duck, Eider Duck, Cuthbert Coot and Fanny Coot, great-grandmother of Donald Duck, Della Duck, Gladstone Gander, Abner Duck, Fethry Duck, Gus Goose and possibly Kildare Coot, and finally great-great-grandmother of Huey, Dewey and Louie and possibly Dugan Duck.

Gretchen Grebe
Gretchen Grebe is the wife of Casey Coot, mother of Cuthbert Coot and Fanny Coot and grandmother of Gus Goose.

Fanny Coot
Fanny Coot is the mother of Donald's cousin Gus Goose. She was first mentioned in the Donald Duck comic strip of May 9, 1938 by Bob Karp & Al Taliaferro where Gus first appeared. Gus's mother's surname wasn't revealed in this comic strip, where she identifies herself in a letter to Donald as Aunt Fanny. In Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree she is featured as a daughter of Casey Coot and his wife Gretchin Grebe, and so a niece of Elvira Coot, Donald's paternal grandmother, and first cousin of Donald's father, Quackmore Duck.

Kildare Coot
Kildare Coot was introduced by artist Romano Scarpa as a highly eccentric fourth cousin of Donald Duck in the story "Sgrizzo, il papero più balzano del mondo" (roughly translated as "Kildare Coot, the weirdest duck in the world"), first published on October 25, 1964. Though his exact relationship to Donald remains uncertain his last name suggests he belongs to the Coot Kin and that he is related to Donald through Elvira Coot, Donald's paternal grandmother. Curiously, Kildare usually treats Gideon McDuck, Scrooge's half-brother, as his uncle. Kildare and his fellow Andy Ascott (original Italian name) appear as reporters of Gideon's newspaper, The Cricket, in some Italian stories.

Goosetave Gander
Goosetave Gander is Gladstone Gander's father. He was originally supposed to be married to Matilda McDuck but Carl Barks later changed his mind and had him married to Daphne Duck instead. They are considered the parents of Gladstone Gander; although his wife's and son's luck does not include him. "Us Ganders have never sunk low enough to associate with you Ducks!", exclaimed Gladstone to Donald in "Race to the South Seas" by Carl Barks, suggesting that there are a mutual antipathy between his father's family and his mother's one.

Luke the Goose
Luke the Goose is the father of Gus Goose.

He was originally supposed to be Gladstone Gander's father, Daphne Duck's husband and Gus's uncle, but Carl Barks later changed his mind about that matter, making Goosetave Gander (who was originally Gladstone's adoptive father after Luke and Daphne "overate at a free-lunch picnic") Gladstone's biological father and Daphne's husband. Luke the Goose disappeared from the tree.

When Don Rosa created his Duck Family Tree, he used Luke Goose (removing the "the" in his name) and made him the husband of Fanny Coot and Gus Goose's father.

Other Ducks
While they share the last name as the Duck family, these characters are not relatives. These characters include the following.

Dexter Duck
Dexter Duck is an anthropomorphic duck who, like Gladstone Gander, contests with Donald Duck to get Daisy Duck's attention. Dexter Duck appeared in one only story thus far, "Double Date" by Tony Strobl, where he plays dirty to beat Donald and conquer Daisy. It's not suggested that Dexter is related to Donald in this story, despite they share the same surname.