I recently received a letter with an offer to sell my mineral rights but I had no idea I had any. Now no one will help me understand how I acquired this. I don't want to sell but it says they are active so if this is true I believe someone owes me some money. I live in Texas and don't know how to get started to track this down.
Sandy, I can't answer all (or even most) of your questions, but luckily there are a lot of folks on these forums who are way more experienced in other areas than I am. Hopefully, some of them will chime in to provide some assistance for you.
At a very high level, if you came to own mineral rights, they were likely inherited from parents or relatives, or willed to you. At least, that's the general way I've seen people come in to them. I would think you could track that down through public records, but someone else can surely provide a little more specifics on that.
You note the letter says the are "active" and believe you are owed some money. Seems reasonable, but again, hopefully someone else can shed a little more light on this.
Regarding the two specific wells you mention, I will look into that and see what I can find out about them.