Married with child and didn't know it. Can I "adopt" child?

[Wai]

Several times I have found after visiting China that my sim got married, had a child and was widowed while on holiday.

Is there any way that my sim can get custody of her unexpected offspring?

Currently, she has a little girl living with her half brother.  I've tried to get them to move in but without success.  So I tried {in edit town) merging one of my other sims with the brother and my sim's mystery child then splitting up the household to move my other sim and the child child back in with my sim.  I can't do this either.  I can move or merge the sim and child into another house, but not merge them with my house.  Nor can I merge the brother and child with my sim's household.

Has anyone any other ideas?  It doesn't seem right leaving a child motherless!

[Pam]

This is a well known bug in the game.  When your Sim travels, sometimes additions are made to the family tree without your knowledge.  I thought this might have been fixed in a patch.  Is your game fully updated?

[Wai]

Pam,

Thank you, but that wasn't my question.

I know it is a well known bug.

You can avoid it by making sure the sim is in a relationship before visiting China.

You can get rid of it from the family tree by deleting the child in edit town mode.

I want to know if there is a way to take custody of said child and return home with said child.

Yes, my game is fully updated, latest patch has not fixed the bug.

[DeLouche]

If you can merge them into another non-vacation world (e.g. Sunset Valley), can you then go back to game (while not on vacation), and go into Edit Town a second time and merge them into your household from there?

Or, will they only merge into households in the Vacation world? If so, you can invite them to visit, make friends, and see if the Ask To move In social appears - I don't know if it only appears for adults though.

[Wai]

DeLouche,

Thank you, I'll give that a try.

[eisande]

If I remember, Ask to Move In is only available for sims aged Young Adult and up. However, you could ask her half-brother (or another Young Adult, Adult, or Elder) that is living with the child to move in. Normally the Move screen will pop up, you should see the child there and be able to do it that way.