Voltage on white wires

We have an outlet that is not working in a new home to us. I removed the receptacle to find 2 white wires on the hot side of the receptacle and two black wires that were connected with a wire nut. I was confused so I just disconnected them and capped individually, but when I turned the breaker back on other outlets did not work. Eventually realized that when I put the meter between the two whites it read 120V so I wire nutted them together. I will get a professional to "fix" the problem, but just wondered if I should be reading 120v between two whites if they are in fact neutral. Thank you.

 

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Can you post a picture? The receptacle needs at least one wire on each side in order to work.

 

Yes.... if there was something connected to one of the dead receptacles then you would see voltage on the neutral wire as it was trying to return the path to the panel.

Keep the white wires connected. You can check from that splice to ground. You should read 0 volts.

 

The house is out of town, but I will be back there this weekend to get a picture, but thank you for the replies.

 

anytime you break a neutral w/a load you'll see it w/ a meter.