How to Find Your Birth Time

A BaZi chart asks you for four things: the year, the month, the day and the hour. Most people can give the first three without thinking. The fourth sends them to a drawer of old papers, or to the phone.

It's worth the search. The hour pillar is a quarter of the chart, and near midnight it can even decide which day you were born on, and with it the day master. Where to look depends mostly on where you were born, so most of this post is a map: where the time is written down, what to ask for, and how to read it once you have it.

A record beats a memory

Western astrologers grade birth data by where it came from. On the Rodden Rating, devised by the astrologer Lois Rodden, AA means the time comes from a birth certificate or a family record, A means it was quoted by the person or someone close to them, and C means handle with caution.

The idea is worth borrowing whatever system you read with. A time written down on the day beats a time recalled years later, however sure the person recalling it. So start with the records, and come to memory last.

Where it's written down

Whether your birth time is on an official record depends almost entirely on where you were born.

The United States. States base their birth certificates on a national model, and the current model has a box for the time of birth on a 24-hour clock: 1700 is five in the afternoon. What you get when you order a copy is another matter. Many states issue a short abstract for everyday use, and abstracts often leave the time off. Nevada's rules for its abstract, for example, list a handful of items, and the time isn't one of them. Minnesota prints the time for births from 2001 on, and warns that older certificates may not show every item. Ask the vital records office of the state where you were born for a full certified copy of the original record, and if the time isn't printed, ask whether the original has it. Full copies are usually restricted to the person named and close family.

Scotland, England and Wales. Scotland records the time of every birth, and has for well over a century. England and Wales record it only for twins and other multiple births. If you were born in England or Wales and you aren't a twin, the certificate won't help, but the hospital's maternity notes might. NHS guidance says they should be kept for at least 25 years after the birth of the mother's last child. The record of your birth is part of your mother's medical record, so the request needs to come from her, or with her consent.

South Korea. The birth report filed when a child is registered, the 출생신고서, has to give the date, time and place of birth. The certificate people usually order, the 기본증명서, shows the date and place. For the time you need the report itself. The original is kept by the courts: a family court, or a district court where there isn't one, depending on when and where the birth was registered. You have to go in person, with your detailed basic certificate and ID, to read it or take a copy. Courts keep these forms for 30 years, so if you were born more than about thirty years ago, yours has probably been destroyed.

Japan. The 母子健康手帳, the handbook issued to expectant mothers, records the date and time of delivery. So, often, does the small box holding the umbilical cord that Japanese hospitals traditionally give to parents. The family register, the 戸籍, records the date and place of birth and nothing finer.

China. The 出生医学证明, the Medical Certificate of Birth issued by the hospital where you were born, gives the time to the minute. It was introduced in 1996, so if you were born earlier you won't have one.

If your country isn't here, the questions are the same. Does the civil record include the time? If not, who kept the medical record of the delivery, and for how long?

When the registry doesn't have it

Hospital records are the next stop, and the sooner the better. Most hospitals don't keep records forever, and the record of a delivery is often filed under the mother rather than the baby.

After that come family papers: a baby book, a hospital bracelet or cot card, a letter written that week. Anything written down at the time still counts as a record.

Asking the people who were there

If no record survives, memory is what's left. It can be good. It's rarely precise, and remembered times tend to come out round: "about three", "half past ten".

Ask about what was happening rather than what the clock said: whether it was dark, whether a meal had been eaten, whether the night shift had come on, what was on the television in the waiting room. Ask more than one person, and ask them separately.

And settle morning or evening first. "About three" can mean three in the morning or three in the afternoon, and in BaZi those aren't neighbours. Twelve hours is six pillars, which lands you on the opposite branch: 寅 becomes 申, its clash partner across the circle.

Reading what you find

A time on paper still needs reading.

Which half of the day. Korea's birth report, China's certificate and current American certificates use a 24-hour clock; older American certificates may not, so look for a.m. or p.m. Japan's birth notification and the 母子健康手帳 use a twelve-hour clock, with 午前 for morning and 午後 for afternoon. On the notification, midnight is written 午前0時 and noon 午後0時.

Round numbers. A certificate that says 03:00 may mean three o'clock, or it may mean somebody rounded. Treat a time on the hour or the half hour as possibly rounded.

Which clock. Take the time as the clocks showed it where you were born. If the clocks were on summer time, that's part of the record too. The post on true solar time covers what happens to a clock time next.

How close is close. An hour pillar is two hours wide, but its edges don't sit on the hour. In Seoul they fall at 32 minutes past each odd hour, so the 寅 hour runs from 03:32 to 05:32 by the clock, because Seoul's clocks run about half an hour ahead of its sun. In New York, on standard time, they fall four minutes before each odd hour. Summer time, where it applied, moves them by an hour. If your time is more than half an hour from an edge, small errors won't change the pillar. If it's closer than that, the minute matters, and what to do when you can't pin it down is its own subject.

Keep a note of where it came from

Whatever you find, write down where it came from next to the time itself: certificate, handbook, hospital, mother, aunt. It tells you, and anyone who reads your chart, how much weight the hour can carry.

A 寅 hour from a Scottish birth register and a 寅 hour from "about four, I think" are the same two characters on the page. The chart can't tell them apart. You can.