it’s a mixture of canons and my own take on it- this from the Disney Wiki entry on Gladstone;

- while no duck canon is ever truly solid (there’s just that much of it that conflicts!) it just made sense to me to blend these options. As Don Rosa’s more recent family tree is generally accepted as canon (especially as it is used in the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck), I decided to keep his canon that Goostave and Daphne are Gladstone’s true parents along with adhering to the visual he gave them. It made sense, however, that Gladstone’s parents are no longer part of the scene, as they never appear in any stories outside of the past. I also felt that this sort of tragedy fitted with the psychology of Gladstone, and explained in part why he didn’t know about the Triple Distelfink for a long time.

For those asking about why I made Goostave the way I did (and being very complimentary! thank you?! glad you all love him too), there’s literally only one picture of him and that’s the grouchy portrait in Don Rosa’s family tree poster so I was like, do I go the bad-grumpy-too-stern-dad angst route? but I decided against that because a) Daphne’s luck would prevent her from marrying a total grump and b) wouldn’t it be nice to tie in how Gladstone is like both his parents by making one of them grouchy on the outside but soft on the inside?

This ‘white balloon’ story will eventually be followed up by another about Gladstone’s childhood after this event, where he went and how Ludwig Von Drake became a significant figure in his life. :Tb