I'm preparing my mother's home for sale. It was built about 1953 and the
wiring lacks the usual third ground conductor. To make it possible to
conveniently plug in stoves, refrigerators, and power tools with
three-wire cords, my father simply replaced two-wire outlets with
three-wire ones, leaving their ground lugs disconnected.

.. . .

Per the NEC you can find the first outlet, and wire that with a GFCI,
and have it feed the downstream outlets. So the first(the GFCI) and
the downstream receptacles are ground fault protected. Just be sure
the follow the rules, and mark each outlet with the normal "GFCI
protected" and "No Equipment Ground" stickers.
.. . .
At this point, every switch and outlet in the house is worn out,
paint-covered, or installed up-side-down, so I plan to replace all of
them. I started out intending to turn the clock back and replace all the


I'm fairly sure that GFCI breakers have a limit to how many downstream
outlets you're supposed to be able to feed with them. (four, maybe?)
If I was going to live in the house, I'de replace all of them. Since
OP is preparing the house for sale, the cheapest option is probably
to replace the breaker(s). Anyone who cares is going to be unhappy
about the lack of ground-wire, using breakers instead of GFCIs isn't
going to make matters worse.

Another thing to check is whether you've got armored metal cable
that's grounded, in which case, pigtailing the receptical ground
to the box may be enough to satisfy the house "inspector"s little
LED tester. (Whether that's safe or code compliant in your area
is another question.) My second-floor circuts are like that.