Also, if you're having freezing doing the move, you could very well freeze during the Edit Town way. Are you getting crash logs or are you having to hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete to quit the game?
You were right, Rica. Using Edit Town led to the whole family disappearing. Going back through saved files uncovered a number of smaller glitches. I don't think the game is all that keen on ghost families. I hope I've now reached a stable previous save but it's an annoyingly long way back.
Margerita, Wiry: I'll add your wishes to the list.
I can confirm that ghosts do just fade out without a fanfare, even when they're in the active household (and I've had 'about to die' notifications most days since Vernon faded out and several 'has lost his grip on the mortal realm' ones).
Also, a playable ghost with Oh My Ghost had an option to resurrect herself as well as her unplayable ghost boyfriend. If it hadn't been a challenge game, I'd have been tempted to take the option, just to see what happened - probably nothing, but I was afraid it might crash the game.