Unknown birth time

Many people don't know the hour they were born. The good news: three of your four pillars — year, month and day — depend only on the date, and the day pillar gives you your Day Master. You can read most of your chart without a time.

What the hour pillar adds

The hour pillar speaks to ambitions, ideas, children and later life, and it adds a quarter of the weight to your elemental balance and Day Master strength. Without it, those two numbers are approximate — FateBook says so on the chart rather than guessing.

How precise does it need to be?

Each hour pillar spans two hours (the twelve "double hours", starting with the Rat hour at 23:00). "Around 8 in the morning" is usually enough. The sensitive cases are births close to an odd hour boundary — 00:59 vs 01:01 — and births close to 23:00, where the day pillar itself changes.

Finding your birth time

• Birth certificates in many countries record the time (US, UK long-form, Australia, most of Europe).
• Hospital records and baby books often have it.
• Family memory: "just before breakfast" is better than nothing — enter an estimate and note it.

Why FateBook also asks for your city

A birth time is only meaningful together with a place. FateBook converts your clock time to true solar time at your birthplace, applying the time zone and daylight-saving rules that were in force on that date. More on accuracy.

FateBook is designed for reflection and entertainment. BaZi is a traditional cultural framework; readings describe tendencies, not certainties, and are not medical, legal or financial advice.