Nicolae Iorga was a native of Botoșani, and is generally believed to have been born on 17 January 1871 (although his birth certificate has 6 June). His father Nicu Iorga (a practicing lawyer) and mother Zulnia (née Arghiropol) belonged to the Romanian Orthodox Church. Details on the family's more distant origins remain uncertain: Iorga was widely reputed to be of partial Greek-Romanian descent; the rumour, still credited by some commentators, was rejected by the historian. In his own account: "My father was from a family of Romanian traders from Botoșani, who were later received into the boyar class, while my mother is the daughter of Romanian writer Elena Drăghici, the niece of chronicler Manolache Drăghici ... The name Arghiropol notwithstanding, my maternal grandfather [was from a family that moved in ... from Bessarabia". Elsewhere, however, he acknowledged that the Arghiropols were possibly Byzantine Greeks. Iorga credited the five-generation-boyar status, received from his father's side, and the "old boyar" roots of his mother (the Miclescu family), with having turned him into a political man. His parallel claim of being related to noble families such as the Cantacuzinos and the Craiovești is questioned by other researchers.