Most people who ask this question have one of three things in hand: an old deed from a parent or grandparent, a letter from a landman or a mineral buyer, or a royalty check that arrived out of nowhere. Whichever it is, the path in New Mexico is the same four steps.
New Mexico tracts are described from the New Mexico Principal Meridian: section, township north or south, range east or west. Spanish and Mexican land grants in the north are described by grant name and tract rather than section, which complicates title in Rio Arriba and Taos. The description is on the deed, on any division order you signed, and usually printed in the property column of a check stub. Write down every tract, including any government lots (irregular parcels along rivers and section edges, described as "Lot 3" rather than a quarter-quarter).
Mineral deeds, reservations and leases are recorded with the County Clerk of the county the land sits in — not with the state. New Mexico's county clerks record deeds and leases; Lea and Eddy in the Permian and San Juan and Rio Arriba in the northwest carry most of the state's mineral instruments, and all four have online indexes. You are looking for the instrument that gave your family the minerals (a mineral deed, or a warranty deed that reserved the minerals when the surface was sold) and for anything that later conveyed them away. If the trail runs through a death, look for a probate, a decree of distribution or an affidavit of heirship in the same index; minerals that were never formally passed on are the most common reason a check stops or never starts.
New Mexico's minerals are dominated by the federal government (BLM Carlsbad and Farmington field offices) and the State Land Office, whose trust minerals are leased at monthly auctions. Private fee minerals are concentrated in parts of Lea and Eddy counties and scattered elsewhere. If you have a New Mexico check, the first question is whether your interest sits under a federal, state or fee lease — the deductions and the paperwork differ for each. The map shades federal minerals so you can see at a glance whether the section you own surface on has private minerals at all.
Once you have a tract, look at it. New Mexico Oil Conservation Division (EMNRD) records will tell you which wells have been permitted, drilled and produced on that section and, through spacing orders, which horizontal wells a mile away are draining it. If there is production and you are not being paid, the operator's division-order department is the next call; if there is a rig on the way, a landman will find you before long. New Mexico's activity is concentrated in the Permian — the Delaware Basin in Lea and Eddy counties, the most active oil province in the country — and the San Juan Basin gas fields in San Juan and Rio Arriba counties; if your tract is there, assume someone else already knows about it.
Put the tracts, the recorded instruments and the fractions in one place. Owners who can answer "what do I own and where" in one sentence get paid faster, negotiate better leases and hand their heirs something other than a shoebox. If you own in more than one state — common for families who homesteaded across the Rockies — keep one set of books per person or trust and tag each tract with its state.
No. Ownership is proven by documents recorded with each county clerk. OCD records show wells and production, not who owns the minerals under them. Federal mineral ownership is a BLM record; tribal minerals are a BIA record.
Probably. Operators pay the owner of record, often found through a title search after a well is drilled. Ask the payor for the division order and the legal description it is based on, then confirm the chain of title at the county.
It depends on whether they are producing, what the wells are making, how much undrilled acreage sits inside an active spacing unit, and current prices. Look at the section's production history and nearby spuds before you answer a buyer's letter.