Do mineral pass to kin when a person dies?

My grandmother owned mineral right on the property where she grew up in Waterloo Ohio. I don’t know anything about how much money she received from them over the years. One time in 1990 she gave like 8 of us a $2000 or more dollars each. So I believe it to be a decent amount. The only thing she ever told me was her father bought they land for $1 an acre way back around 1920 or before. The company who drilled the land and mined the coal had been in a long court dispute over where they excavated the land, and their rights to. I could be wrong but i believe my grandmother got paid a lump sum or sums, and made a yearly profit from her rights. My question is, what happens to those rights upon her death. Would they have been split up amongst her other living siblings, or past to her children, my Mom would have been her only living child at the time, but has since passed. How are rights get passed down? If those rights would then be mine, how do you go about finding them? Ohio is a long ways away from Oregon, can it be researched online? I don’t know who lives in the property now, as I’ve lost touch after my Mom passed, but I’m sure they are owned by the family. Thank you Kristina Aduka

typically, property is inherited either by a will or by what is called intestate succession (someone who dies without a will.) If your grandmother had a will, the property would go to the whoever was named in the will. If no will was executed, or it can’t be found, it would, probably, go to her children or the children of her children at the time of her death. Not 2022. You don’t have to go to Ohio to research this. Further, unless you know land records or oil and gas law, it may not even help you. I would consult an oil and gas lawyer in Ohio. If there is money in the unclaimed property fund, there may still be production being paid every month. In other words, it wouldn’t just be a one-time payment. No guarantee, though.

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