Natal astrology is a specific branch of astrology which holds that information about the nature and course of a person’s life is reflected by the alignment of celestial bodies when they were born.
Natal astrology is also sometimes referred to as genethlialogy, from the Greek word genethlialogia (γενεθλιαλογία). This was the original term for natal astrology in the Hellenistic tradition. The Greek word means “the study that pertains to nativities” or “the study that pertains to births”. In this way natal astrology can be defined the most broadly as the application of astrology to the birth if individuals.
In some traditions natal astrology only involves the study of the alignment of celestial bodies on the day that a person was born, while other traditions study the alignments that occurred at the exact moment of birth. Most western traditions have tended to focus on the exact moment of birth since approximately the 1st century BCE.
Natal astrology is one of the four traditional branches of western astrology.
