Weird little thing

From last night's parental phone call:

Apparently, we (and a set of cousins of my dad's) are the inheritors of mineral rights to some oilfields in Dewey County. Dewey County as in the state where I currently reside (though they are HOURS from me, off in the northwest of the state).

Apparently some of my dad's mom's German relatives, when they were living in Kansas, invested in this. I don't know how long ago but it had to be pre-1920s if it's the person I'm thinking of. And all these years later, attorneys for some oil company managed to track us all down through an Ancestry.com page an uncle of mine curates.

Yes, there's money involved: a per-acre bonus (my dad and his two brothers share the interest in 21 acres; the cousins apparently have the other 21). I can't remember what my dad said the per-acre signing bonus was, not huge but not inconsiderable either. And then apparently, if the field is productive, there are royalties.

Two thoughts about this, one frivolous, one serious. Serious one first: Oh crud, this probably means some day my taxes will be more complicated (if there are royalties and my brother and I wind up inheriting).

Frivolous: Does this mean I could style myself as some sort of oil baroness? Given my stereotype of "Dallas" people, that means I need to learn to tease my hair up high and start wearing a lot more jewelry than I do. And probably read Southern Living more closely and start adopting some of the styles and ways of doing things....

Still, the main thing that's interesting to me is that all those years, no one knew about this. All those years ago my great-grandparents (or actually, I think great-great grandparents) bought rights to a patch of land in Oklahoma, and no one knew about it until now....

(Though I confess I wish it was more some kind of "Oh, hey, we found some of your great-grandma's costume jewelry, do you want it?" or "There's a whole bunch of neat old books they owned that we're sending to you." This is a lot less tangible link with a part of my family I know little about....)

I also admit I kind of want to find the legal address of this land and drive up there and just see it. Kind of like I want to try to track down where the family manse was (apparently) when some relatives on my dad's dad's side of the family were richfolk in Covington, Louisiana, and go look at it. Even if it's just a vacant lot, which it probably is, because the family lost its money, moved away, and the house burned....