When an operator needs to know who owns the minerals in a drilling unit, they send a landman to the county courthouse to research the title. It's painstaking, detail-oriented work that directly determines whether you get paid and how much. Understanding the process helps you appreciate why title research takes time and why title opinions sometimes get things wrong.

The Assignment

A landman receives a tract assignment: research the mineral ownership for Section 14, Township 12 North, Range 3 West (for example). The goal is to trace every mineral interest from the original source to the present day and produce a "runsheet" documenting every transaction.

At the Courthouse

County clerk offices maintain indexes of every recorded document affecting real property: deeds, mortgages, leases, assignments, probate records, court orders, and more. The records are indexed by grantor (seller) and grantee (buyer).

The landman works backward and forward through these indexes:

Start with the current records. Search the grantee index for the legal description to find who currently holds interests in the tract. Identify every deed, mineral conveyance, and assignment affecting the section.

Trace backward. For each current owner, trace how they acquired their interest. Follow the chain of conveyances back through each transaction: who sold to whom, when, and what was conveyed or reserved.

Go to the source. Eventually, the chain reaches the original patent (from the government to the first private owner) or the earliest recorded conveyance. In Oklahoma, this might be a land run patent from the 1890s or a tribal allotment.

Identify every severance. Along the way, note every instance where minerals were severed from the surface, reserved in a deed, or conveyed separately. Each severance creates a new chain that must be traced independently.

Check probate records. When an owner in the chain died, the landman needs to determine how the interest passed. Was there a will? Did it go through probate? Was an affidavit of heirship filed? Each death adds research.

Note gaps and problems. Missing documents, ambiguous deed language, unrecorded conveyances, and skipped generations are all flagged as potential title defects that will appear as requirements in the title opinion.

The Runsheet

The output of the research is a runsheet: a chronological list of every recorded document affecting the tract, with the key details of each (date, grantor, grantee, book and page, type of instrument, and the mineral interest conveyed or reserved).

The runsheet goes to the title attorney, who reviews it, applies the law, and writes the title opinion determining current ownership.

How Long It Takes

For a simple tract with a short chain of title, a landman might complete the research in a day. For a complex section with multiple severances, multiple generations of inheritance, and 100+ years of history, the research can take a week or more.

Oklahoma sections with fragmented ownership from the land run era are among the most time-consuming to research. A single 640-acre section might have 50 to 100 mineral owners, each with their own chain of title.

Why Mistakes Happen

Title research is inherently imperfect:

These imperfections are why title opinions have requirements and why payments sometimes end up in suspense while defects are resolved.

What You Can Do

If your title is clean and your records are organized, you make the landman's job easier and reduce the chance of errors that could delay your payments. File your deeds, record your affidavits, and keep your ownership documentation in your mineral rights binder.