RockinRobin,
I think what happened to your family is a result of massively updated story progression in the game. With my current family, I'm finding the whole town just moves around. The Goths no longer live in the Goth Mansion. The Wolfe family doesn't live in their isolated beach house. They have moved into random houses in town. My own family members have moved out of the houses I put them in, too. I think one is even homeless because I can't find where he lives now. I put him and his new (and pregnant) wife into the house Christopher Steel had until he died. They aren't there now and I don't see them anywhere on the map view. I've invited him over a few times and then asked him to leave so I could follow him. A couple of times he went to a vacant house and disappeared. He never goes to a place that is his home. It seems very bizarre, but I really think that EA has just fixed story progression so that the lives of Sims in town move along like we wanted them to from the start.