Quit Claim Missing Party

How can one go about filing a quit claim if one party cannot be located? My mom divorced my step father in 1973. We have not been able to locate him, through lawyers nor the court. My mom is up in age and would like to have several pieces of property soley in her name and/or in my name. Last we heard, my step father was some place overseas. My mom has been paying the taxes on these property since '73, some of which has his name only and some with his and hers. If she had not, the court would have sold them. I went to the clerk of court and they sent me to records. Records stated they only record the claim and that we needed to hire a lawyer. We don't want to hire a lawyer and want to do this on our own and file with the court. I was also told there is some way to run an ad in the news paper stating a quit claim has been filed, but no one has been able to tell us how to do this. What recourse do we/my mother have without hiring an attorney for something we're hoping we can do on our own? Thank you in advance for any and all replies. We are in Florida.