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How should you record an approximate birth time for Saju?
By Mindy Park
Record an approximate Saju birth time with its source, range and uncertainty, without turning a family memory into an invented exact minute.
Record an approximate birth time as an estimate, together with where it came from and the range you can honestly support. Keep the original wording of a family memory or document. Do not replace “around dawn” with an exact minute just because a form asks for one.
The goal is to give a reader enough information to preserve uncertainty. Our guide to Saju without birth time explains what can remain unresolved; this page helps you prepare the information you do have.
Make a birth-time note
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Date and calendar | The recorded date, whether solar or lunar if known, and any conversion already made |
| Place | The birthplace, not your current city |
| Original time wording | The exact wording in a record or recollection |
| Source | Record, named family recollection or your own estimate |
| Supported interval | Earliest and latest plausible time, if there is a basis for them |
| Unresolved points | Unclear morning/evening, conflicting accounts or an unknown calendar convention |
This is an editorial recordkeeping template, not an official birth document. If you cannot justify an interval, write that the interval is unknown.
A hypothetical example
A family member remembers “shortly after breakfast.” Another remembers that a relative arrived at 9 a.m., after the birth. Those recollections might help a conversation, but they do not automatically prove an 8:30 birth.
Keep both statements separately. If a hospital record later gives a time, preserve which source supplied it. Do not silently overwrite the record with a preferred reading or a more vivid memory.
Recorded precision is not the same as certainty
A 2002 maternity-unit study found a maximum difference of 7 minutes 52 seconds between delivery-room and resuscitation-room clocks. The original abstract describes one historical maternity unit. It is not a modern population error rate or a correction to apply to your birth time.
The practical response is to disclose uncertainty, not to assume every record is wrong. A printed minute can still be the best information available to you.
Ask which boundary matters
The Academy of Korean Studies describes hour periods and differing day-boundary conventions. Ask the chosen reader how they handle your plausible interval and whether any chart feature changes within it.
You can request separate outputs for justified alternatives, with their assumptions labeled. Do not choose the output whose prose you like most and then call that proof of the correct time. Our calculation guide explains how to keep inputs and interpretation separate.
If a calculator requires a single time
Look for an unknown-time option or ask the provider how estimates should be entered. If you use a representative time for exploration, label the chart hypothetical and keep your original range beside it. A form accepting a value does not turn that value into a fact.