User blog comment:Luffayking12/Who exactly does doflamingo work for?!!?!?!?!?!?/@comment-1595565-20130626185731

Based on the little we can derive from his childhood, I'm guessing it could be a case of adoption. He doesn't appear to have been born into a family, but he clearly has connections to them in some other way. His picture as a kid suggests one of two things, either he was poor and got rich, or was rich and got poor. Either way, he never severed his ties with the nobility.