How to Find Your Time of Birth in the UK
Most UK birth certificates leave the time out. Here is where it is recorded, how to ask for it, and what to do if it cannot be found.
To find your time of birth in the UK, check your birth certificate first if you were born in Scotland or are a twin. Otherwise ask family, look through baby books and the red book, and request your hospital birth records. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland a standard certificate normally shows no time.
Is the time of birth on a UK birth certificate?
It depends on where you were born. The rules are different across the UK, which catches many people out when they first try to draw up a birth chart with its twelve houses.
| Where you were born | Is the time on the certificate? |
|---|---|
| England and Wales | Only for twins, triplets and other multiple births |
| Northern Ireland | Normally only for multiple births |
| Scotland | Yes, on every entry in the statutory register, which began on 1 January 1855 |
The National Records of Scotland guide to the birth register confirms that the time is recorded on all Scottish entries, while English, Welsh and Irish records include it only for twins and other multiple births. In those cases the time is there to show which baby arrived first.
If you were born in Scotland, ask your local registrar or National Records of Scotland for a full extract of your birth entry, so that every detail in the register is copied. If you are a twin born elsewhere in the UK, order a full certificate and look beside the date of birth.
How to find your time of birth, step by step
- Check the certificate. This settles it for Scottish births and for most twins and triplets.
- Ask the people who were there. Parents, grandparents, aunts and older siblings often remember more than they expect. Ask helpful side questions: was it light or dark outside, before or after lunch, close to a change of shift on the ward?
- Search the family keepsakes. Baby books, birth announcement cards, the hospital wristband or cot card, a parent’s diary, the back of the first photograph and newspaper birth notices can all carry the time. In many British Asian families a janam kundli (a birth chart drawn up soon after the birth) was made by a family astrologer or priest, and it usually has the time written at the top.
- Look in the red book. Parents are given a personal child health record, known as the red book, to log weights, checks and vaccinations. Turn to the birth details page and read any notes tucked inside. Not every copy has the time filled in, but it takes two minutes to look.
- Request the hospital records. Write to the NHS trust or health board that runs the hospital where you were born and make a subject access request, which is your legal right to see data held about you. It is normally free and the organisation should usually reply within one month. Birth details often sit in your mother’s maternity notes, so she may need to make the request herself or give written consent. Give full names, dates, the hospital and the address at the time.
- Write down what you find. Record the time, the source and how exact it looks. “About 3 in the afternoon, from Mum” is still useful, as long as you remember it is approximate.
One caution on step five. Maternity records are generally kept for 25 years after the birth, so files for older births may have been destroyed. If you were born at home under NHS care, the notes went to the local hospital.
Do you enter your birth time in BST or GMT?
Enter the time exactly as the clock on the wall showed it, along with the date and town. Good chart software knows whether British Summer Time (BST) was running that day and does the conversion to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) for you. Do not subtract the hour yourself, or it may be taken off twice.
Today the clocks go forward at 1am on the last Sunday in March and back at 2am on the last Sunday in October, as the GOV.UK page on when the clocks change sets out. It has not always been that tidy. During the Second World War, Britain ran two hours ahead of GMT in summer and one hour ahead in winter. Between 1968 and 1971 the clocks stayed one hour ahead of GMT all year round. So a January 1970 birth was recorded an hour ahead of GMT, even though it was midwinter.
How accurate does a birth time need to be?
It depends which part of the chart you care about. Your Sun sign needs only the date, unless you were born on a day the Sun changed sign. The Moon stays in each sign for a little over two days. The rising sign, the sign coming up on the eastern horizon, is the sensitive one. It changes about every two hours on average, and the exact rising degree moves on by roughly one degree every four minutes.
So a time that is right to within 15 minutes is good enough for most purposes. Bear in mind that times on records are often rounded to the nearest five minutes or quarter of an hour. Our guide to reading your Sun, Moon and rising sign together shows what each of the three adds.
What if you cannot find your time of birth?
You can still learn a good deal from your chart. There are four sensible options.
- Use a noon chart. Enter 12 noon as the time. The signs of the Sun and planets will almost always be right. Ignore the rising sign and the houses, because those depend on the real time.
- Check your Moon sign. Cast one chart for just after midnight and one for just before the next midnight. If the Moon is in the same sign in both, that is your Moon sign for certain. This matters in Vedic astrology, where the Moon sign carries great weight, as our comparison of Vedic and Western astrology explains.
- Narrow the window. Even “early morning” or “just after the school run” cuts the possible rising signs down to two or three, which you can then read and compare.
- Consider rectification. This is where an astrologer works backwards from the dates of major life events to estimate a birth time. Treat the result as an informed estimate, never as a record.
If you are new to all this, our beginner’s overview of what astrology is explains the basic building blocks before you start entering times and places.
Frequently asked questions
Is the time of birth on a UK birth certificate?
In Scotland, yes: every birth entry since civil registration began in 1855 records the time. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the time is normally written down only for twins and other multiple births, so most people born there need to look at family or hospital records instead.
How do I get my hospital birth records?
Write to the NHS trust or health board that runs the hospital where you were born and make a subject access request. It is normally free. The details may sit in your mother’s maternity notes, so she may need to ask or give consent. Records older than 25 years may no longer exist.
Do I enter my birth time in BST or GMT?
Enter the local clock time exactly as it was recorded, with the date and place of birth. Reliable chart software works out whether British Summer Time applied on that date and converts it for you. Check the time zone it shows, and do not take the hour off yourself.
Can I get a birth chart without a birth time?
Yes. Use 12 noon as a stand-in time, which gives the right signs for the Sun and planets in nearly every case, and usually the Moon too. Leave out the rising sign and the houses, because those cannot be known without a reasonably accurate time of birth.
The takeaway
Start with the certificate if you are Scottish-born or a twin, then work through family memories, keepsakes, the red book and hospital records. Enter whatever time you find as local clock time and let the software handle BST. If nothing turns up, a noon chart still gives you plenty to reflect on.
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