Everyone is offering web hosting.  Most are resellers.  Is there a way
to determine the company that actually owns the servers?

There is no way to know if they own the servers. They could be leasing
dedicated servers. But I think your question is "how do I know if they
are resellers"

Make a whois to their IP Address. 
http://www.whois.sc/here.their.ip.address
In the "answer section" there most be their domain name (or their
anonymous dns name). Otherwise, the IP address was registered by
someone else.

If they own the server it is very possible that the offer Reseller
plans. In this case, they must set up reseller accounts with your
domain names as the main account. There are companies that offer
prepaid reseller plans to their actual resellers. For example. If
there is a company A that owns the servers, there could be a Reseller
B. Company A would give to B a reseller plan with the main account
domainB.com. Then B buys from A 10 prepaid reseller plans. A creates
the  accouts with userb1.xyz, userb2.xyz, ... as their main accounts.

Man, it's a whole new world... Do you know of any good deals for
wannabe resellers such as moi?  I was hooked up with 247-host (great
price), but their servers have been down now for over three days
(lousy service).  I'm just looking to post some low volume
informational, vanity sites.  Thanks!