Not to continue turning this into an electrical thread...but....a few things. The FiRST thing I thought of when I read your issue was, they are wired to an outlet...it's extremely common and I figured it was too stupid to mention. If there is no light in a ceiling, you will have a lamp and want a switch to power it as you enter the room.
Second, some of the best logic I ever heared about electrical wiring:
If you change an outlet, do you need to turn the power off?
If the answer is yes --- then you have no business being in the panel.
Even with the breaker off you will still have possible exposed live wire, running 110v out of phase in 2 circuits, giving you 220 I'm actual potential. The voltage won't kill you, the amps will. But the electric company has no limit to the amps that can flow through those wires. Simple mistake and death awaits. No joke. Changing a breaker and getting a zap from that will only give you half of the potential that you could possible get out of the box.
Next, if you recently bought the house, did you get an inspection done? There was an issue with a certain brand from years ago where the boxes would fail and cause fires. If you have one of these breaker panels, your home insurance may actually require you to replace it...or void your insurance. What brand do you have?
Finally, I've seen some crazy stuff done by previous home owners that were lucky they didn't die. When I bought my house I was going to install a light in the ceiling of a second story bedroom. The switch had an extra Romex wire in the box (encased black/white/ground) and I checked all the outlets and everything and couldn't find the other end. Finally I went in the attic, pulled back insulation and discovered the other end of this live wire between the ceiling and insulation, still stripped and exposed except for REGULAR tape around the conductors. Just scotch tape!!! With the conductors about 1/2 inch away from each other, under insulation. Arching would have sent the house up. Someone must have pulled a ceiling light out of the room and didn't even know enough to cap the wires, nevermind kill it.
So the people who went before you could have been insanely stupid and if you are positive you will recognize all of the issues, it may be smart to hire someone who will. You also don't have to open walls for electrical 90% of the time, so it will save you money there.
One tip. Buy a multimeter, set it to resistance and turn the speaker on. When you touch the tips of the two probes, you will get a beeping sound.
Then turn off the electricity. If you touch a probe to a wire, the other probe will cause the meter to beep when you touch the other probe to the other end of the wire. So if you have a box with Romex and don't know where the other end is, you can set this up and pull outlets, etc. To find the other end. U don't even have to pull the outlets, just push the probe into the slot in the outlets to make a connection. Use an extension chord to to reach when you need to (the probes are usually only a foot long or so). You can plug an extension into the outlet, bring the other end to the box of wires and push the probe into the extensions outlet.