The Sims 4 Family Tree Q&A Summary

Question: Thank you for doing this! I want to know if the new family tree will prevent adopted children and friendly science babies to be viewed as Scandal by the new pack?

SimDevXènia: Adopting children and/or having science babies does not count as a scandal.

Question: How far up/down does the family tree now reach? great-grandparent/-child?

SimDevFiore: Hello! We have expanded it to show up to 10 generations of Sims – 5 above, and 5 below your currently selected Sim

Question: You’re adding ‘step’ parents but they were already there? How does this new addition work..

SimDevAzure: We’re adding step-parents as a proper label in the Family Tree. Previously they weren’t described this way by the game.

Question: Are aunts/uncles and cousins added?

SimDevXènia: yes, all of them are here: Mother-in-Law, Father-in-Law, Sister-in-Law, Brother-in-Law, Daughter-in-Law, Son-in-Law, Distant Relative, Distant Relative-In-Law, Half-sister, Half-brother, Stepmother, Stepfather, Stepdaughter, Stepson, Great-grandmother, Great-grandfather, Great-grandson, Great-granddaughter, Parent’s Cousin, Cousin’s Child, Grandniece, Grandnephew, Grand-aunt, Grand-uncle, Ancestor, Descendant, and Relative-In-law. Divorced has a new name: Ex-Spouse, and Deceased Spouse has a new name: Late Spouse.

Question: Will in law relationships be included on the family tree?

SimDevFiore: Yes, the Family Tree will now show In-Law relationships!

Question: Will any premade sims get expanded family trees? Like ancestors (Goths are great candidates for it), or only Johny Zest is joining langraabs offcically in the tree?

SimDevXènia: yes, goths and landgraabs got it! but only for new saves. they will have ancestors and a dynasty with values

Question: But they don’t show up on the family tree

SimDevFiore: Aunts and uncles will now show as a label in the family tree!

Question: Hello, I would like to know whether the family tree will display titles for a spouse’s family members.

SimDevXènia: yeah, if you mouseover you will see their titles.

Question: What new about family tree

SimDevAzure: The Family Tree has been updated with new relationship labels. Extended family members will now be shown in the Family Tree and players can also choose whether adopted Sims are labeled as such in the Family Tree.

Question: is adoption being altered at all e.g. the relationship between an adopter and adoptee being distinct from biological parent/child relationships?

SimDevXènia: no, except some bit of text in a moodlet or two, the relationship is the same.

Question: Will the family tree update come onto my older saves? Not bothered about the Premade sims as I delete them all anyway and make my own.

SimDevXènia:yes it will, regardless of they were premades or not, you will see the expanded family tree if the sim information is there (meaning, if your save file didn’t cull them from the game in the past)

Question: How does Forging Trees work? Will we be able to see Aunts and Uncles now?

SimDevAzure: Yes, you will be able to see Aunts and Uncles! and for Forging Trees (specifically for Royalty & Legacy) your Sims can fake family ties (lie about them) by using the Forging interaction on the Family Tree Tapestry object.

Question: Is there a way to go into the legacy/dynasty screen and change things around on previous saves?

SimDevXènia:you can change things around by performing forgery in the family tree. but that can have your sims end up in a scandal!

Question: How far in the family tree do you have to be for romance interactions to work? Royalty historically married their distant cousins (or even first cousins)

SimDevFiore: We have done a big update here and you actually will no longer be able to romance ancestors that are directly connected to you “in a vertical line” This only applies to new relationships in your save file, if you have a Sim dating an ancestor in an existing save file we won’t break that relationship!

Question: Will you be able to view whether a sim was adopted? Also, is setting that an option in CAS when creating a family?

SimDevXènia: You can if you enable the setting in gameplay settings. By default it’s disabled

Question: Is the Baby Daddy Choosing only avaible in the new DLC?

SimDevAzure: Yes. This is specific to the Secret Child feature which is a part of Royalty and Legacy (not base game).

Question: Will pets show in the family tree? Or is that just specially Sim related lol?

SimDevXènia: no, pets and humans are separate, sorry!

Question: Hi! Will we be able to see familial relationships by marriage (sister-in-law etc.)?

SimDevAzure: Yes! Mother-in-Law, Father-in-Law, Sister-in-Law, Brother-in-Law, Daughter-in-Law, and Son-in-Law

Question: Can we assign these new roles in CAS?

SimDevXènia: No, we didn’t add these to CAS. So if you wanted your Sim to have a cousin, you should set up aunts/uncles who have kids

Question: can a sim have biological and adopted Parents at the same time?

SimDevXènia: yes

Question: are the changes retroactive or will they only apply to new relationships?

SimDevAzure: They Family Tree updates are retroactive.

SimDevXènia: for the person who asked if ‘adopting erases their existing parental relationships’: no, but it will require the sim that is getting adopted to have less than 2 parents to start with (including dead parents)

Question: Will the new family tree show the old spouse if someone dies and remarries?

SimDevAzure: Yes, and we’ve updated the name from Deceased Spouse to Late Spouse.

SimDevFiore: Romance is not allowed between Cousins (this was already the case!) But you can romance an in-law or a step-relative as you are not actually related by blood – we’re aware that in most scenarios this feels icky, so we made sure that Sims will no longer autonomously start flirting with in-laws and step-relatives This helps ensure that Sims will keep their platonic relationships as such! However, if you love drama and actively want to make your Sim flirt with in an in-law, you totally can do that – makes for a very typical telenovela plot!

Question: will the family tree show who was adopted and who was not?

SimDevFiore: There’ll be an option in settings to choose whether you want to show Adopted sims with an ‘Adopted’ label or not

Question: does the new family tree keep the persons portrait if they are an ancestor from a long time ago ? in my saves it usually deletes the grandparents unless they are ghost or occults

SimDevXènia: check your culling settings, it seems that you might have it set to low if the game is removing portraits of deceased sims.

Question: This may be more of a Dynasties question than a family tree question, but can Sims more “found families” or “chosen families” be represented in Family Trees or Dynasties and selecting Heirs?

SimDevAzure: Dynasty members can only be sims related by family ties or marriage. If you’d like to create a “Found/Chosen Family” story you can now add adults to your family by adopting them.

Question: How do male Sims have illegitimate Children?

SimDevXènia: if you make a Sim pregnant with your male Sim, you will not be able to ‘lie’ about your tie to the baby. if you switch control to the pregnant sim however, you can choose from the dropdown the father that better suits the story you want to tell

Question: Will Mrs.Crumplebottom be in the Goth Family tree ?

SimDevXènia: yes! the goth family tree now is pretty big

Question: Do we have step siblings?

SimDevFiore: Yes, it’s a new recognised relationship that will appear in the Family Tree!

Question: What the button”show legend” is for in the family tree window??

SimDevXènia: it explain what the different lines, portrait shapes and icons mean. dotted line = secret baby, two rings = married, etc

Question: What the button”show legend” is for in the family tree window??

SimDevFiore: The Show Legend button shows a legend of all the new icons and different types of connecting lines you can see in Family Tree now. If you have Royalty & Legacy, you will be able to see unique icons in the Tree that show you the Dynasty a Sim belongs to, their Noble ranking, as well as any special connections to other Sims For instance, Sims in the same Dynasty will have a different type of connecting line Also, in Royalty & Legacy you’ll be able to Forge false family connections between sims – those connections will be shown through a dotted line in the Family Tree!

Question: Will the long lost relative that shows up in Growing Together genealogy research now show up in your family tree?

SimDevAzure: No. There’s no proof that Kyle is actually related to anyone. Let him into your Sims homes at your own risk!

Question: Are Dustin Broke and skip Broke in the same family tree?

SimDevXènia: they are! and it’s not only the brokes! all families will be linked in the tree properly now

Question: is there a way to add a friend to your family tree without marrying them or adopting them?

SimDevXènia: no, friends do not appear in family trees!

Question: will we see in the family tree of premade sims others members from others packs?

SimDevFiore: We have done a big pass of updates to include family connection between Sims from different packs that are intended to be related by lore – we’re a bunch of massive lore nerds haha! You will see those connections in a new save file if you have both packs those Sims come from (such as Lily Zhu and the Vatores)

Question: if parents of step siblings devorce, does the relationship go away or, like with the ex-spouse one, it stays (would the sibling label also change?)

SimDevFiore: Step-relative relationships will go away if there’s a Divorce between the Sims that connect those step-relatives

Question: Will the family tree update come onto my older saves? Not bothered about the Premade sims as I delete them all anyway and make my own.

SimDevAzure: Yes. The family tree updates will show up on your older saves.

Question: For those households that got updated with ancestors. Will the ghosts be in our game with the possiblity of us playing with them or is it just for the family tree?

SimDevXènia: no, there is a limit of sims that we can add with each pack, and ghosts count as sims too, so they’re just portraits in the family tree. they will not have tombstones or will be eligible for resurrection unfortunately.

Question: Is there a way to go into the legacy/dynasty screen and change things around on previous saves?

SimDevAzure: You can create Dynasties for your older saves.

Question: Sometimes sim data gets culled if a save gets too big, will the ancestor data be protected or yeeted?

SimDevXènia: when a sim is culled, we protect the portrait, name and other cosmetic bits but not the proper ID, meaning you cannot resurrect them or find their ghosts wondering. but they’re in the tree for posterity

Question: This may be stupid but will ghosts of past sims still be on the family tree? Will we will able to see things such as traits,jobs etc on the family tree (I doubt it but I thought I’d ask!)

SimDevFiore: Ghosts will appear on the family tree! You will not see all details of a Sim on the Family Tree, their traits will not show for instance

Question: How will it show if there’s an immortal sim still alive that goes back further than 5 generations

SimDevXènia: as usual, the portrait of the sim will be in color instead of black and white.

Question: will girlfriends and boyfriends be added to the family tree?

SimDevXènia: no, they only show up after marriage as usual.

Question: Does the tapestry allow you to form found family connections and add people not related by blood to the family tree

SimDevFiore: Forging connections via the Tapestry is to have a ‘false’ connection (it can lead to a Scandal if found!), it’s the kind of thing you would do if your Sim is a social climber and they want to fake their way into a Noble family! But in Royalty & Legacy we have also added the option to Adopt sims regardless of age, to give another way to build a found family

Question: Also, how do you adopt another Sim? Do you have to have a certain level of friendship with them? (I sort of assume so)

SimDevFiore: Yes you need to have a high level of friendship with them, then it will appear as an option when you interact with that Sim in the pie menu

Question: Out of curiosity what is culling and when does it happen?

SimDevXènia: the game keeps a recommended amount of sims in your save file (max is 200, but recommended may vary depending on your PC) to keep the simulation running smoothly. if the cap is reached, the game will try to erase the IDs that have some inactivity in order to keep the save file ‘healthy’, so to speak

Question: If you adopt a sim do they become your adopted child or can they be a different adopted relative?

SimDevFiore: You can only adopt them as your child specifically

Question: So my guess is if you upload sims to the gallery their family tree is wiped if someone downloads that household right? Only showing the sims in the household

SimDevXènia: that’s correct, we only keep their information upon upload.

Question: How can you find someone else scandal ? By breaking inside and snooping ?

SimDevAzure: You can find out another Sims secrets/Scandals by asking mutual Sims if they know the target sims secrets, rummaging through trash, buying secrets from the Info Brokers website, or witnessing the secret as it happens (catching them in the act!).

Question: So a young adult can be the parent of another yong adult?

SimDevFiore: Not quite, there’s still a restriction on the Adoptive parent having to be at least one age bracket older than their adoptive child

Question: I’m REALLY interested to know Princess Cornelia’s family tree and how far it goes

SimDevAzure: Pretty far! You’ll be able to see how Cordelia’s family tree connects with Tybalt Capps!

Question: in the new pack “royalty and legacy” have new interactions with the familiy tree, what it’s do in the gameplay?

SimDevFiore: In Royalty & Legacy specifically you can Forge false family connections between two unrelated Sims (via the Family Tree Tapestry) You can also establish another Sim as your “Secret Lover” once you have a flirt going with them. And if you have a child outisde of your “official” relationship, you can lie about their real parent and have a Secret Child All of these details will be visible in the Family Tree

Question: Will the family tree show the vampire relationship between a spawn and a maker?

SimDevXènia: no, we figured vampire spawns should not be part of the family tree in case they were romantically involved before being turned into vampire.

Question: Will the family in Tartosa Arnessa Thebes family connect to Cordelia Thebe ?

SimDevXènia: yes!

Question: When a family description mentions a deceased family member, they are not currently shown in the family tree. Will this update make them appear?

SimDevXènia: the only families we created ancestors for are the goths, the landgraabs, the thebes, the capps & montys and the darongs.

Question: Can you use the forge connection item to remove yourself from a family tree? Like if you wanted to run away from your family and the pressure of a dynasty?

SimDevFiore: Forging connections is specifically to create a new fake connection (which could be one day discovered and lead to a Scandal. You won’t be able to use it to ‘escape’ your family!

Question: Anyway sorry to repeat this question but will clones be shown on family tree? I ask because I was wondering if vlad is one of the first vampires, so I he is would he show as a sibling to a spellcaster ?

SimDevXènia: clones made using the cloning machine from the scientist career will show in the family tree as usual, in the form of siblings. no lore updates were given to vlad. one of my favorite sims