When my father died, he left behind a lot of mineral interests. He had always handled that side of things. The rest of us knew the checks came in, knew there were properties involved, but didn't have a clear picture of what was where, who operated what, or what any of it was worth.

We were lucky. A family friend worked with a land company and was able to do the research, run title, and help us consolidate everything into something we could actually understand. Without him, we would have been completely lost.

That experience is a big part of why MinRight exists. But not everyone has a family friend in the business. So this post is for the person sitting at a kitchen table with a stack of old check stubs and no idea where to begin.

Start With What You Have

Before you search anything online, gather whatever paperwork you can find. Old royalty check stubs, lease agreements, tax returns that mention depletion deductions, deeds, letters from operators. Look for a few key details:

Even one of these gives you a starting point. If you have a check stub with an operator name and a legal description, you can find a lot.

Check the State Oil and Gas Commission First

Every major producing state runs a free online database of wells, permits, production data, and operator information. This is the single best place to start because it costs nothing and it can confirm whether there are active wells tied to the land you think you own.

Oklahoma has the Corporation Commission's Well Data Finder, a GIS-based map where you can search by well name, API, county, legal location, or operator. It covers permits, completion reports, and production data. Free.

Texas has the Railroad Commission's Public GIS Viewer, which contains oil, gas, and pipeline data in a searchable map format updated nightly. They also offer online research queries for production data and downloadable data sets. All free.

North Dakota has the Department of Mineral Resources with free well data, production reports, and drilling permits. They also have a page specifically for mineral owners dealing with inherited interests. Be aware that North Dakota has a dormant mineral act: if mineral rights go unused for 20 years without a recorded statement of claim, they can revert to the surface owner.

Louisiana runs SONRIS (Strategic Online Natural Resources Information System), with public records freely available online. Note that Louisiana production data is organized by lease or unit, not by individual well. They also offer an interactive GIS map for visual searching. Free.

Wyoming has the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission with well data and mapping tools. Free.

Colorado has the Energy and Carbon Management Commission (formerly COGCC) with a well database and interactive map. Free.

Kansas has the Geological Survey with a well database searchable by township, range, and section, plus production data and scanned well logs. Free.

Ohio has the ODNR Division of Oil & Gas Resources with an interactive well map. Ohio also has a dormant mineral act similar to North Dakota's.

West Virginia and Pennsylvania have state databases as well, including Pennsylvania's DEP Oil and Gas Mapping tool, though online access to older records can be more limited.

The pattern is the same in every state: search the oil and gas commission website first. It's free, it's official, and it tells you whether there's active production on or near the land in question.

Then Look at County Deed Records

Well data tells you what's happening on the ground. Deed records tell you who owns what. This is where you trace the chain of title: who originally owned the minerals, who they were conveyed to, whether they were reserved in a sale, and so on.

Online access to county records varies a lot by state.

Oklahoma has OKCountyRecords.com, which covers 66 of 77 counties with land records. You can search the index for free. Document image downloads require a subscription or per-page fee. Not every county is on the platform (notable exclusions include Canadian, Cleveland, Oklahoma, and Tulsa counties), but it covers a wide portion of the state.

Texas has TexasFile, which covers all 254 counties. Searches are free, and document downloads cost about a dollar per page.

North Dakota has NDRIN (North Dakota Recorders Information Network), a subscription service covering most counties. Some of the biggest Bakken counties (McKenzie, Mountrail, and Williams) are not on the platform, so you may need to contact those county recorders directly.

For other states, check the county clerk or recorder of deeds website for the county where the property is located. Some have online portals; others require a phone call or an in-person visit. The Mineral Rights Forum is a good place to ask about county-specific access.

Check for Federal Mineral Rights

If the land is in a western state, there's a chance the federal government retained the mineral rights when the surface was originally homesteaded under the Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916. The BLM manages approximately 58 million acres of mineral estate beneath privately owned surface.

The Bureau of Land Management runs the Mineral & Land Records System (MLRS) where you can search federal mineral records by legal land description. You can also check original land patents for free at glorecords.blm.gov. Both tools are free.

Check for Unclaimed Money

This one surprises people. If an operator couldn't locate the mineral owner to send royalty payments, those funds may be sitting in escrow or with the state's unclaimed property division.

Free Tools Worth Knowing About

MineraliQ, run by Enverus, is free for owners with less than $250,000 per year in mineral revenue. It can consolidate your wells, show nearby drilling activity, and track payments from more than 150 operators automatically.

The Mineral Rights Forum is an active online community where mineral owners discuss state-specific questions, compare notes on operators, and share advice.

NARO (National Association of Royalty Owners) offers educational resources, state-specific guides, and advocacy for mineral owners.

When to Hire a Professional

If the chain of title is complicated, if there are multiple heirs, if properties span several states, or if you're just overwhelmed, hiring a landman or a mineral rights attorney is money well spent. A landman can run title, identify what you own, and organize it into something usable. Expect to pay $300 to $500 per day depending on experience and complexity, with a basic title search project often running a few thousand dollars.

A mineral rights attorney can help with affidavits of heirship, probate issues, and any disputes over ownership. If you inherited interests that were never formally transferred, you'll likely need legal help to get the title cleaned up. To find a certified landman, check the AAPL directory (American Association of Professional Landmen).

Get It Organized and Keep It That Way

The hardest part of inheriting mineral rights isn't the legal work or the research. It's the moment after, when you have a pile of information and no system for keeping track of it. That's what happened to us. And that's what led to building MinRight.

Once you know what you own, put it somewhere you can find it. Record your properties, link your leases and wells, log each royalty payment as it comes in, and keep your documents attached to the properties they belong to. When the next generation needs to pick up where you left off, they shouldn't have to start from scratch.

Maybe you just need to get it all documented once. Enter the properties, generate a report for the family, and you're done. MinRight's monthly subscription is designed for exactly that: get organized, get your report, and cancel. If you end up wanting to track royalties over time, the lifetime license is there when you need it.