Unknown birth time

What difference does it make? My mother can't remember the exact time of my birth and I have found that putting just one hour difference in a natal reading makes a big difference to the outcome.

So what do you do when you don't know your exact time of birth?

ps its not listed on my birth certificates.

It's a common problem, especially in England and Wales where birth times are not put on birth certificates.

Your mother should have at least a vague idea. Try offering her time 'zones'

Were you born before breakfast
Were you born before lunch
Were you born before dinner/evening meal

You can then subdivide and see if you can get further. For example if you were born before breakfast, was it before dawn? and so on.

Try other relatives, such as Aunts and Uncles or grandparents if still alive. What time of day did they hear about your birth?

These sort of questions can narrow it down to a span of a couple of hours.

Then get several charts done at say half hour intervals or 15 minute intervals and look at the Ascendant, MC and Moon. Do they feel right? which feels best?

This may bring you down to a one hour span or even less. Then you might try fine tuning through the house rulerships or you can try a professional Astrologer for a rectification based on your information and some key dates in your life.

I remember Dave (dadsnook2000) outlining a method that he used to try and narrow down and rectify birth times, so have a look back through the old threads.

Thanks for that, will have another chat with Mama and a scout around for other posts.

If you were born in hospital then your mother would certainly have difficulty remembering what time of day it was and meal times in hospitals are truly forgettable as well.

Milfoil said:

What difference does it make? I have found that putting just one hour difference in a natal reading makes a big difference to the outcome.

So what do you do when you don't know your exact time of birth?

Click to expand...

If you stick to transits then it makes very little difference.

not knowing time of birth means you won't know what your rising sign is and hence all the planetary placements in the houses

it will also make your moon sign difficult to know unless the moon is in the same sign for that day midnight to midnight of the next

many factors that are personal will not be known, still you are left with quite a lot to work with despite

She will still know what planets are in what signs, she can do transits with good accuracy, accept Moon of course.

But if she has a burning query then go for a horary chart, fast, accurate and you know the time.

I'm not sure I'd agree with Willowfox that it makes very little difference, but rephrase it as we don't really know what difference it does make - it's an area of ignorance, a sort of Astrological black hole. You could however work back from certain transits to see if you can tie down a birth time.

Practically though I do agree with Willowfox, if you have burning issues then use horary. Indeed even for people who have very accurate birth times, horary can be far more useful than 'standard' predicition techniques as it focuses clearly on one specific issue (or two or three closely related issues).

Alternatively in the absence of better info, you could cast three charts, one for Sunrise, one for Noon and one for Sunset. Keep the charts for reference and over a period of time try to find out which fits best. Then you could try to refine things through rectification, if you really feel the need or simply want to 'play' with Astrology.

As star-lover says it does make a difference as far as your ascendant sign, which is just as important as your sun sign it colors the personality of your sun, and your moon sign which represents your emotions all 3 are in my opinion the most important pieces of a chart not to mention the aspects each will make with each other all your other planets and houses. The rest of the planets should be right, especially the outers but it's the aspects they make with your moon, sun and rising sign, and all of your inner planets, which move fairly quicky.

The rule of thumb is if you don't know your time of birth to go with 12 noon. I would start there and see if it at all fits, then maybe read up good on the signs to try and pin point what you *think* your ascendant and moon might be according to your personality and mix it with your sun sign and go from there. It might seem like they could all somewhat fit but one of them fit better than the rest and your moon will fall close to where it was at your time of birth...not perfect but close.
Good luck, hopefully your mother can remember an approximate time, like morning, afternoon, or night and if not, as minderwiz said you can erect a chart for all 3 times and see

Thank you. Its a complex subject which I don't know much about (just had to go look up Horary!!!)

Certainly from what I have done so far with free, online natal charts, the more I tweek the time, the more accurate it becomes.

I couldn't understand how a reading could be so far out but I had got am and pm mixed up so as soon as I put the correct (general) time in, in the evening instead of morning, it started to make more sense.