My grandfather homesteaded land in ND and my mother plus 5 others in the family inherited his mineral rights. From there they were passed down to my generation of which there are 13 of us some of which there are 2 in a family to 4. Plus one of my uncles who never married received 1/2 of grandpa's mineral rights before he passed his other half onto the rest of his children. This uncle inherited the half because he farmed with grandpa. That was another deed that was filed when that uncle passed away and deeded his rights to us 13 cousins. So, our mineral rights are all different now.
When the quick claims are filed and recorded, all they note on them are the township, range, section. So how do they determine the individual acreages owned for figuring the division orders.
Ms. Simons, you have to go back to the original deed, in the case of homestead it would be patent and work forward. I think mistakes are often made by landmen. In my own case landmen have made probably half a dozen substantial mistakes.
Well, if I were the landman presented with the above scenario I would identify and locate each LIVING heir or heir-at-law of grandpa by inspecting Probate and Deed Records and applying the laws of descent and distribution in the North Dakota Probate Code whenever necessary to come up with a fraction that each person owns of the minerals that grandpa used to own. Then I would inspect the original Deed into Grandpa to get the acreage amount, or if the acreage amount was not specified therein and grandpa got the land from the State, which I assume when you say that he homesteaded the land, I would inspect the acreage amount for the survey the State conducted when divided up the land. Hopefully, your County has a map showing these surveyed acreage amounts. If not, you might have to make inquiries with the state government.