Mineral Ownership - Where Do I Start?

I was notified several years ago that I inherited a small amount of mineral rights on 50 acres in Fayette county. I have since lost the paperwork-how do I find out this information. I know some details, like my family members names were Frank and Anna Nitschmann and they purchased the land in 1912 or 1920. Who do you recommend I talk to? I am a teacher and would like to take care of this over the summer. I will be driving to San Antonio on Wednesday and can stop by the courthouse, I guess. Please tell me the steps I need to take, it would be nice to retire off this-haha.

Well all I can offer is a big welcome! I live in Texas and my oil interests are in New Mexico. Rest assured, there will be helpful people guiding you in the right direction here.

You will need to search the Fayette County deed records which would be in LaGrange. These may be online. First see if there is deed or probate into your name. To determine your net (fractional) interest in the tract, you will need to search back through the deeds to see how it was divided. Or forward from original owners.

If you’ll go to the courthouse in LaGrange and tell the folks in the county clerk’s office what you are trying to find they can show you how to check the deed record indexes.

Before you go you can try looking up that family name on www.texasfile.com. To search their deed indexes for Fayette County you will need to set up an account but that part is free. If you find documents there you think are worth looking at you can pay a couple of dollars to preview them or just write down the recording information (volume and page) so you can look at them when you are at the courthouse.

A guick check I did there on the name Nitschmann brought up 12 documents including some oil leases and affidavits but they only went back to 1993 and didn’t include anything in the name of Frank or Anna.

Thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction. I just visited the courthouse, the county clerk was so helpful. I met a few landmen and saw a document from 1907; printed out the lease, looked at a map of the abstract, went to the Tx RR Commission and saw the wells on the Abstract. I now get to call the Operator and see about getting my $$$! Thanks again! Y’all are great!

Thanks for letting us know how it turned out.