I purchased an older small house that has a newer service panel with breakers. I was changing about 8 three prong recepticals to a different color (brown to ivory) I noticed that there was a ground wire that seemed to have been added at one point. I decided to go into my crawl space to take a closr look and found that all the added ground wires are securely attached to the large bare ground wire coming from the service panel to the ground rod. Shouldn't the added ground wires go to the service panel? Should I hire an electrician to feed them through the floor and wall to connect to inside the panel box? I did buy one of those three prong testers and it does show the plugs are "grounded". Am I overly worrying about nothing?
Thanks.

Homes existed for decades without a ground so this is not a huge worry but a ground is a great improvement and increases safety. Whoever added that ground did it incorrectly and likely illegally. Call 3 electricians and get bids on pulling new cable or wire to your receptacles from the panel, the only correct way to fix this