Regarding the Figarland connection, I'm thinking it's possibly Uta's mother's family.
I checked One Piece Red dialogue again and the Elder know that Shanks is the father of Uta. But they only assume that Uta might be a Figarland. So that kinda leaves Shanks out of that family. They maybe don't know who the mother is but only have a guess - and that guess is of the Figarland family(?).