finding out personalities/compatibilities?

maestrojay

I am into personalities of people, and how this affects them and their interactions with others.

In a perfect world, birth times would be needed to get even the initial charts made. My question is, does MM/DD/YY alone tell us more than the astrology sign generalizations?
 

Barleywine

I am into personalities of people, and how this affects them and their interactions with others.

In a perfect world, birth times would be needed to get even the initial charts made. My question is, does MM/DD/YY alone tell us more than the astrology sign generalizations?

Without a birth time, you can't get a reliable fix on the Ascendant, which - along with Sun and Moon - is a major determinant of personality. It finally dawned on me a while ago while looking at some of the popular daily horoscope stuff being pushed on the internet that what current "Sun Sign" astrologers appear to be doing is reading the chart as if the Sun sign is rising (or maybe culminating - a generic "noon chart" - I haven't investigated it that closely). It only comes even remotely close to working if you were born at dawn (or perhaps mid-day).

Despite the claim in that old Meatloaf song - "Two out of three ain't bad" - just using the Sun/Moon combination won't take you too far since you can't anchor anything to the mundane sphere (houses) with any reliability. So you couldn't really see how they might relate to their worldly circumstances and the people in it. For people you know very well or have an extensive life history for, you could possibly rectify the generic chart to get an approximation of the Ascendant, Midheaven and intermediate house cusps, and go from that. I did it for my father, mother and in-laws with results I have at least middling confidence in.
 

Minderwiz

Without a birth time, you can't get a reliable fix on the Ascendant, which - along with Sun and Moon - is a major determinant of personality. It finally dawned on me a while ago while looking at some of the popular daily horoscope stuff being pushed on the internet that what current "Sun Sign" astrologers appear to be doing is reading the chart as if the Sun sign is rising (or maybe culminating - a generic "noon chart" - I haven't investigated it that closely). It only comes even remotely close to working if you were born at dawn (or perhaps mid-day).

Yes, in fact what they do is have the chart set for a dawn birth for each 'sun sign'. They then use whole sign houses to fix the mundane connections (that is the topical areas of your life).

As Barleywine says this only works if you happen to be born at the same time your 'Sun Sign' is rising. It will work to a lesser extent if your Moon Sign happens to be rising, as the Moon is the second most important factor after the Ascendant.

The day month and year are important. That give the positions of the planets in the signs. The speed of the planets varies from the Moon which is the fastest through to Pluto (if you use it) which is the slowest. That means that even using the same day of the month will not give the same position for the planets, other than the Sun (and even that will 'drift' slightly).

The hour fixes the Ascendant, as each sign rises 'on average' for two hours. The 'average' disguises a significant range of variation. So what you need to do is find the time that you were born, as accurately as you can. If it's noted on your birth certificate, that is great. Otherwise you will be dependent on family recollections. The closer you can get to your 'real' Ascendant, the better. It's not absolutely essential to get to the right 'minute' for your purposes. An error of half an hour to an hour might be a good basis to work from in trying to get the Ascendant sign right.