If you don’t know your birth time, then you are not alone, as this is more common than you might think. However, if you want to look at your natal chart or work with astrology in any way, you’re going to want to try and work this out.

Without your time of birth, it’s impossible to get a full picture of your personal astrology, but there are ways to work with this.

In this article, we take a closer look at what to do if you don’t know your time of birth.

What is your natal chart?

Your natal chart is a snapshot of the sky at the time you were born. It shows the position of the planets in relation to where you are on the Earth.

Why is your birth time important in Astrology?

The planets are constantly moving, some faster than others. For example, the Moon spends only a few days in each sign, and the Moon's conversations with other planets impact us for just a few hours.

What to do if you don’t know your birth time?

Step 1: Research

The first thing to do is try and find out your birth time through all available means.

Here are some suggestions:

• Ask members of your family or friends who were around when you were born, as they may remember, or provide you with an estimate, such as early morning or late evening, to help narrow things down.
• Go through old documents where you may come across your birth certificate with the time on, or perhaps a baby book with date and time information
• Request a copy of your birth certificate. The process for this will be different depending on where you live. The best way to start this process is to Google it for your country. Make sure your birth certificate contains your time of birth before ordering and paying for it.

Step 2: Narrow it Down

If you can’t find the exact time through research, try narrowing it down. If you can get a time frame, then choose a time somewhere in the middle for your estimated birth time. You can also pull charts for the earliest and latest possible charts to see what variations there are.

• Do you know if it was morning, afternoon or evening?
• Do you know what part of the morning, afternoon or evening it was?
• Do you have an estimated time frame, such as before mid-day or in the evening, but before 10pm?

Step 3: Get Your Chart Rectified by an Astrologer

This is considered one of the hardest things to do in astrology, and it is therefore a service provided by only a select few astrologers.

Chart rectification is the process of working backwards through life events to determine a hypothetical time of birth.

What to do if steps 1-3 fail?

You can use an estimated time window, pulling a chart for the earliest and latest possible times.

If you just have a date and no estimated time window, then select mid-day as your estimated time.

Your Sun, Moon and Rising Sign

If you can narrow your birth time down to a window of 1-2 hours, you can determine your Moon sign, rising sign and Sun signs, although not to the exact degrees.

Pull up a chart for the earliest and latest possible times, and see what changes?

If you don’t have an estimated time window, pull a morning, mid-day and evening chart.

Are your Sun, Moon and rising sign in the same signs throughout the whole time range? If so, then you can use those as your reference points. If not, consider both signs when reading for yourself, and trust your intuition regarding which one feels more like your sign.

The Planets in Your Chart

For the planets, you can focus on the placement in the signs and how they interact with each other. This should change very little over a 24 hour period.

What won’t be accurate

Without knowing the exact time, you won’t get accurate information for the following:

• House placements
• MC & IC
• Ascendant (Rising Sign) & DC
• Degrees in the signs

Final Thoughts

Although there is nothing better than an exact confirmed time of birth when it comes to looking at your natal chart, there can still be a lot of information gleaned from an estimated time.

It’s important to focus on the information you have available and work with what you have, rather than on what you don’t have.

The more you explore your chart and the subject of astrology, no matter how accurate your birth details are, the more you will learn about yourself.

Allow yourself to investigate and connect with what comes up in your estimated charts. If you have potentially two Moon sign options, for example, research both and determine which one feels like a better representation, and commit to it. Just because the information isn’t exact doesn’t make it wrong. Instead, get curious and explore your chart in a more intuitive way.

Tell me your thoughts

• Have you tried to look for your birth time? If so, how did you get on?
• Do you have a time window to work with?
• What have you learned as you explore the mystery of your time of birth?

Let me know in the comments below.

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