How to find your birth time (Australia, New Zealand, UK and US)

Your Rising sign, your houses, your Human Design type and your astrocartography lines all depend on the time you were born, sometimes to within a few minutes. Most people have no idea what theirs is. Here is where it is usually recorded, country by country, and what to do if it is gone.

Start with the people who were there

Ask a parent, an older sibling, a grandparent or an aunt. Many remember it to the minute, or remember a detail that pins it down ("just before the six o'clock news"). Baby books, baby cards, hospital bracelets, the first photo's timestamp and birth announcements in newspapers often carry the time. Check before you spend money on records.

Australia

A standard Australian birth certificate does not show the time of birth. The time is usually in the hospital's records, and you have a right to your own health information under privacy law. Contact the hospital's medical records or health information department, ask for the time of birth from your birth record, and expect to show ID. Public hospitals keep records for many years, though some older records have been archived or destroyed. If the hospital has closed, the state health department can usually say where the records went. Some state registries hold the time in the original birth registration (the form the parents filled in), so it is also worth asking Births, Deaths and Marriages in your state for a copy of the full registration rather than the certificate.

New Zealand

As in Australia, the printed birth certificate does not usually show the time. Try the hospital where you were born first, then ask Births, Deaths and Marriages for a printout of the full birth record, which may include it.

United Kingdom

England and Wales record the time of birth on the certificate only for multiple births (twins, triplets). For everyone else, the hospital's maternity records are the place: ask the NHS trust's medical records department for your own notes. Scotland is different: Scottish birth certificates include the time of birth for everyone, so an official extract from National Records of Scotland will have it. Northern Ireland follows the England and Wales pattern.

United States

Many US states record the time on the long form (also called the vault or full) birth certificate, though not on the short form most people carry. Request the long form from the vital records office of the state you were born in. Some states never recorded the time, and in those cases the hospital record is the fallback.

If it really is lost

You have three honest options. Use the readings that do not need it: the Birthday Year Ahead, Love Compatibility, the Moon Phase Print and the Birth Chart Print (which simply leaves the houses off) all work from the date alone. Use an approximate time if you have one, such as "early morning", which is enough for a birth chart with a caveat, though not for Human Design or astrocartography. Or have an astrologer attempt a rectification, which works backwards from the dates of major life events to estimate the time. Rectification is a skilled, slow process and it gives an estimate, not a record.

How exact does it need to be?

• Birth chart (Rising sign and houses): within about half an hour is usually fine, though a Rising sign can change in a few minutes if you were born near a sign boundary.
• Human Design: to the minute or within about half an hour. The chart can change within hours.
• Astrocartography: to the minute or within about half an hour. Every four minutes moves every line about 100 kilometres.
• Moon phase, Sun sign, numerology, Chinese animal: no time needed.