My father and his three sisters inherited mineral rights in Doddridge Cty, WV from their father (my grandfather). At this time my father and one of his sisters is deceased. There are eight living heirs, and we all know each other. However, the landman working for Antero indicated there are more heirs. I don’t understand that. Is there a place I can research this myself?
You might need to define terms. The landman may have meant more heirs from your grandfather, great-grandfather on down. There may be only eight on your “level,” but there are others that are second or third cousins. As to how to find out, that is a combination of running title and using ancestry. You start with where your family came into title, and run title on down. You will probably need a landman for that. Then you might need ancestry or one of the other heirship search tools to determine who is an heir of whom. Also, it is important to note, because sometimes people may get confused. As an example, if there are three sisters, and one of them dies, that interest goes to her heirs. It is not a last man standing gets to inherit everything.
1 Like
You might try a genealogy search with your family’s name and see what comes up. It’s possible someone in the family had children you aren’t aware of?..
1 Like
Try getting the landman to explain it to you and give you a written copy if he will. Landmen make a lot of mistakes too.
Thank you for your response. A search of the ‘Gum’ name brought up A LOT. 
Even a road named Gum. Would love to meet them someday.
Thanks for replying. I will ask for a copy of the Will. I sure hope he has one.
You can have fun with the bringing the history to present date. From a technical standpoint it may not just be heirs. Devisees may be involved also, so it is not just building a family tree.
1 Like
Did your grandfather have any siblings? Did your great grandfather have any siblings? Im sure that they did and thats what the Antero landman is referring to. It will take you a few hours, but sign up for ancestry.com and use google for obituareies etc if they arent provided on ancestry and you can find this out pretty easily since you know grandfathers name and date of birth and death. I did this to research my family, because some of my family members asked me to and I was curious as well, had no oil and gas interests so was just out of curiosity. It took me about a day to build a tree back to when both sides came to america. It gets hard when you get into the 1800’s, but dont think youd need to go that far back.
1 Like
Thank you Tim. Oddly enough I had started an Ancestry account before all these shenanigans started. Found the original Will but never thought it would come into play in this day and age.