If you have been looking through deeds for your homeowners and are stuck, it could be because ownership of the property transferred by inheritance rather than by sale. Probate records, which are court proceedings to pass a deceased person’s property to the heirs, fall under the jurisdiction of the states. The records are normally located in the county clerk’s office where the deceased person last resided. Within the probate records you might find out who the heirs to the property were, and sometimes an inventory of the items within the household is shown.
A search on Google will help you identify if the probate records for the year you are researching are online, or at the very least offer suggestions on where to locate the records for the county you are researching. You may just find that the homeowner died and left the house and property to someone in the family.