Ok, so I have suddenly realized I have a electrical problem in my new house. I am an aircraft electrician with quite a few years of experience, however, don't deal in control circuits often.

So, On one circuit - 4 outlets, including an outlet in family room, and can lighting in kitchen all have 54vac on the ground wire. The neutral has 0 on it. Hot has 74 or so. I checked these all with a run of wire to my water pipe to ensure I had a good ground. I've pulled out all the outlets in the basement to look for loose connections or grounds touching -- nada. I'm assuming my next step is to crawl into my attic and check the can lighting. I can isolate everything one at a time if I have to, but I'd like to know if there's anything Im overlooking.

Let me ask this in a different way.

When you measure between Neutral and Hot, you get 74 VAC?

When you measure between Ground and Hot, you get 54VAC?

Or are you using the cold water pipe as the ground leg? Is the cold water pipe bonded to the Main Panel Board?

If you are (for illustration only) in a bathroom and using the cold water pipe you need to make sure that there is 0 (Zero) resistance between where you are and the main panelboard.

Some times, a plumber will slip a PVC filling and thereby destroy the 0(Zero) ground reference point.

Neutral - hot 120vac
Ground - neutral 54vac
Ground - hot 64vac

The water pipe I am using in my basement to test bonded to gnd, 0.0 to gnd on the panel.

So when I test using that ground as my reference, I have 54vac on gnd, 0vac on neutral, and 64vac on hot

Sounds like a neutral to ground short. Start at the beginning of the circuit where you can find 120 volt to neutral, and zero neutral to ground. Take each segment of circuit apart, and begin connecting each at the beginning and checking at the end of each segment.

Since you have already checked each outlet and junction box, perhaps there is defective section of cable, either by a nail/screw or mice.