How the birth times on these charts are checked
A birth chart is cast for a moment, and for most famous people the moment is less certain than the date. Each chart page here says where its birth time comes from, whether the original could be seen, and what in the chart would change if the time were wrong. This page explains how those judgments are made.
Where a time can come from
Every time is traced as far back as the sources allow: to a birth certificate or register, to an announcement made when the child was born, to the person or the family, or to a biography. When the trail ends in an astrology collection that names no source, or names one that could not be seen, the page says so in words before it shows the chart.
| On the chart pages | What it means | Letter | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| From a birth record | A birth certificate, a register entry or an announcement made at the time gives the hour, and a source quotes or reproduces it.For example Steve Jobs, Kim Kardashian, Albert Einstein | AA | 3 |
| From the person or family | The person, a relative or someone close to them gave the hour, usually from memory. | A | 0 |
| From a biography | A biography or an autobiography prints the hour.For example Elon Musk | B | 1 |
| Reported, source not traced | An hour is in circulation, often in an astrology collection, but it could not be traced to a record, or the original it cites could not be seen. | C | 0 |
| Disputed | Two or more hours conflict, and none has been traced to a record.For example Narendra Modi, Vladimir Putin | DD | 2 |
| Birth time unknown | The date is on record; the hour is not. | X | 0 |
The letters are the scale the astrologer Lois Rodden devised, which Astro-Databank uses for its records. On the newer chart pages the letter is our own reading of the sources listed there, and our C is narrower than hers: besides times with no source, it covers times that a collection credits to a certificate or a family when we could not see that certificate or statement. Those pages were researched without Astro-Databank's records, so where a collection credits a time to Lois Rodden, the page says that much and no more. A page shows Astro-Databank's own rating only once it has been matched to that record, and labels it as theirs. Each page prints the letter in its birth-data and source tables, beside what it means; the rest of the page says it in words.
How a chart page reads its time
Every chart page opens with the zodiac (Sun), Moon and rising signs and says, for each, how far the birth data settles it: all day whatever the hour, at every time in circulation, or only if the time used is right. Where the time is unverified or disputed, or where a recorded time sits close to a change, a panel under that table lists what holds at every candidate time and what does not.
To find out, the chart is recalculated through the whole birth date, every two minutes, and each change is then timed to the second. A feature that holds all day needs no birth time at all. One that holds at every time in circulation can be read even when the time is disputed. One that differs between the candidate times, or that changes within a few minutes of a recorded time, is marked wherever it appears on the page, in the list of what stands out and in the aspect table alike.
A recorded time can still be a little out, so a page marks a feature when it changes closer to the recorded time than the margin below.
| Time | Marked within | Why |
|---|---|---|
| From a birth record | 10 minutes | Certificates and registers often round to the nearest five minutes. |
| From the person or family | 15 minutes | A remembered time is usually a rounded one. |
| From a biography | 30 minutes | Biographies tend to print the hour as the family gave it, often to the half hour. |
The same hour on two clocks
Some times in circulation are one moment printed on a different clock. India adopted Indian Standard Time in 1906, and a chart printed in Indian Standard Time for an earlier birth is often the local mean time of an older source, restated. When two readings land within 45 seconds of each other, the page counts them as one moment and casts one chart.
Other readings keep the printed hour and move the moment. A collection that reads a 1946 Arkansas time as daylight time, when the state kept standard time that summer, casts a chart an hour off. Each page lists such readings with the clock its source used, casts them separately, and says when the record sets one aside.
What the pages leave out
No time is rectified here, that is, adjusted until the chart seems to fit the life, and no page prefers one candidate time because of what happened later. Pages with dated events list them as facts with their sources. They do not show the slow planets on those dates: on most days of a long life at least one of them sits within a degree of an aspect to a natal point, so a contact on an event date says very little.
Reading these charts with a kundli
The signs on these pages are tropical: the Western zodiac, tied to the equinoxes. Vedic astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, which for births since 1850 sits between about 22 and 24 degrees behind, so the same Moon is often one sign earlier in a kundli. Each chart page gives the Lahiri Moon sign and lagna beside the tropical signs, and a sidereal table further down.
Back to the celebrity birth charts.