Family History Mod, Public Release
The Family History mod provides a way for your sim to research their imagined genealogy. Find connections to Kings, Pirates and more!
The Family History mod provides a way for your sim to research their imagined genealogy. It doesn’t try to account for their near-past genealogy, such as grandparents, but rather their ancestors in the more distant past many generations ago, such as their 4th great grandparents. Sims can learn what regions their ancestors were from, whether they have any notable ancestors, and finally whether they are descended from any legendary figures, such as kings, wizards or infamous pirates.
These ancestors, implemented as traits, will provide your sims with various bonuses based on who they were, the idea being that if your sim is descended from a notable Doctor, they might have a natural ability to be a better Doctor than usual, and so on, as if it were the family business.
Once a sim learns some ancestral traits, they can teach them to other members of their family, who then also get those traits. They can also write a family history book that allows related sims to read and gain the traits, as well as pass it down from one generation to another.
There are 33 notable ancestors, and 27 legendary ancestors, each with names, backstories and family portraits. Also 29 ancestral region traits, each with an associated landscape portrait.
Pack Dependencies
The minimum packs I've tested with are
Get To Work (provides the Records Cabinet)
Get Together (provides all the portraits)
Seasons
All of the pack-specific Regional recipes, as well as a number of pack-specific objects have been migrated to separate package files found in the PackExtras subfolder.
You should remove the files from PackExtras that are for expansion and game packs that you do not have installed. I'm hoping this allows more players to use this mod without running into missing pack errors, especially due to recipes.
Ancestral Traits
There are four types of ancestral traits
Ancestral Regions
These indicate that some of your sim’s ancestral lines come from this region. Every sim will have multiple ancestral regions, representing different ancestral family lines. If you have a connection to an ancestral region, it's more likely that you will find connections to any Notable or Legendary ancestors that come from that region.
Notable Ancestors
Notable Ancestors are ancestors who were famous due to their professional skill, such as Doctors, Entertainers or Athletes. Each Notable Ancestor has a home region they were from, and it will be added as an ancestral region if you find a connection to the ancestor.
Knowing about notable ancestors gives your sim bonuses related to the profession of their ancestor if they live in the same region that the ancestor did, as well as material benefits like scholarships and investment funds.
Legendary Ancestors
Legendary Ancestors are ancestors who were famous due to legendary occult abilities or having been involved in large scale events. These include Spellcasters, Adventurers, Royalty, Knights, and so on. Each Legendary Ancestor has a home region they were from, and it will be added as an ancestral region if you find a connection to the ancestor.
In addition to buff bonuses relating to the legendary ancestor, discovery of some types of ancestors provides a family gift of the ancestor’s journals. Reading these can provide bonus traits and abilities based on your ancestor’s exploits.
Scandalous Ancestors
Scandalous Ancestors are ancestors who became regionally infamous due to career-related scandals. These can be considered negative notable ancestors. Instead of a bonus, there will be a very small scandal related career penalty in the region that the scandalous ancestor is from.
For example:
"Ephraim Bixby was a Brindleton Bay area Bestselling Author who was discovered outsourcing entire novels to a struggling freelancer while claiming creative genius."
Descendants of Ephraim Bixby will get a 10% penalty to writer career performance and overall reputation if they are living in Brindleton Bay.
Ancestor Benefits
Many of these ancestors have non-profit foundations that provide scholarships, investment funds and other benefits to their descendants. If you find a connection to a notable scholar, for example, your sim will get a full scholarship, and by passing the trait down to their children by teaching them about it, all of them (and their children, etc) will also get free college.
When you discover any of these ancestors or ancestral regions, you will get a painting of the region or portrait of the ancestors. You can view these paintings and get various positive buffs as well as Ancestral Favor.
The full lists of ancestors can be found on the Simsonian Library website at https://simsonianlibrary.com/family-history/index.html
Family Lore Skill
The Family Lore skill represents how well your sim knows how to do genealogical research. Genealogical discoveries use a Research Progress mechanic very similar to Scientific Breakthroughs from the Get to Work Scientist career. Your sim can research their genealogy, and once they get to a certain point they'll have a breakthrough and learn something new about their background.
Finding Ancestral Traits
Your sim can research by
Researching Genealogy on a computer
Creating a Rootsy account and searching for connections on the computer.
Reading certain historical books in the library: SimCity Census Records, SimCity Picayune Archives, SimCity City Directory
Searching for Rare Documents in a library
Searching for and analyzing family memorabilia in the attic decoration box on your sim’s lot
Analyzing Memorabilia found in the SimCity Records Archive.
Using the metal detector to find buried memorabilia and analyzing it. Must be in a region your sim's ancestors came from.
Talking to other sims in regions that your sim's ancestors came from. Must be in a region your sim's ancestors came from.
Analyzing gravestones.
Visiting Mediums (click on your sim and choose Goto Seance under Family History).
Asking sims in one of your Ancestral Regions about local families in the area.
Discussing family backgrounds with another sim.
Can 'Research Birth Certificates' on any computer on the Hospital lot
Can 'Research Legal Documents' on any computer on the Police Station lot
Can 'Research Historical Wills' at City Hall in Ravenwood
Research Tools
SimCity Records Archive
There is a SimCity Records Archive object (pictured top left above) that acts as a bookshelf with several genealogy-related books automatically included. This is best placed in a library (where it will add the books to all of the bookshelves) or some other 'public' type location. The Gnome's Arms pub in Hensford-on-Bagley is a good place for one of these, for example, as are Community Centers (if lacking a library in the region). You can also buy these books at a bookshelf.
If you are in one of your ancestral regions, you can Rummage Through Memorabilia on this to find objects that will provide genealogical research progress if you analyze them.
Rootsy Online Genealogy
Rootsy is a sim genealogy website that your sim can visit to research specific ancestral regions (increasing the chances of finding ancestors there, including notable and legendary ones), learn more about Family Lore in general and contact other descendants of the same ancestors.
Analyzing Gravestones
Once you gain a certain Family Lore skill level, you can analyze gravestones in your ancestral regions for genealogical research progress. They don't have to be 'in use' (assigned to a dead sim), so you can just build a graveyard 'park' lot somewhere for Sims to do research. Anything tagged as a gravestone, tombstone, gravesite or crypt will work.
Simsco Metal Detector
The metal detector can be used to find dig piles anywhere. However, if you are in one of your ancestral regions, the dig piles will contain genealogical memorabilia that you can study for research progress.
You can also purchase the metal detector on a computer, under Order -> Genealogical Supplies or on the Sim City Records Cabinet.
Family Reunions
I added another type of Family Reunion event for descendants of notable and legendary ancestors. If your sim has a notable or legendary ancestor, you can schedule a reunion for other sims who are also descendants.
Populating the Past
The social features aren't very much fun if you are the only sim in the world that knows their ancestry, so there's a new Cheat feature (Shift-Click -> Family History ->Populate Random Ancestors) that will generate ancestors using roughly the same logic as used for sims for all sims in the current save.
Passing the Knowledge On
Once your sim learns about some of their history, they can teach relatives about it so that they will get the benefits of those traits as well, eg, a grandparent teaching a grandchild their family history will result in the child acquiring all of the ancestral traits that the grandparent has.
Once you reach level 3 in Family Lore, you can Teach Family History to your immediate relatives. This will copy all of your ancestral traits to the family members.
Your sim can also create a Family History book that will keep track of their ancestral traits, and allow family members who read it to also have those traits. Once you reach level 9 in Family Lore, you can write a Family History book on the computer.
Distant Relatives
There's a chance that you will find distant relatives that have some of the same notable or legendary ancestors as you. It provides a bonus to friendship.
To compare your family backgrounds with another sim, select Discuss Family Backgrounds. You can learn about people in your Ancestral Regions by asking sims in that region about local families.
Sims with a common ancestral region have some additional social interactions under the Family History menu, including talking about regional politics, sports and history.
Ancestral Recipes
Each region has an ancestral recipe that can be found and unlocked. It's meant to be a 'home-style' or local variant of an existing dish, like the signature dish for that region. You can find them by searching for memorabilia in either the records cabinet or the attic decoration box. You will only find recipes for regions that are your sim's ancestral regions.
If your sim has ancestors from a region, eating an ancestral recipe from that region will give you a special buff for a few hours. Both cooking ancestral recipes and eating them provide ancestral favor bonuses. They've all been made available at cooking level 2, since it's meant to be something average sims made at home.
You can both teach ancestral recipes to others, as well as ask others to teach you the ones they know, whether either of you is from the associated regions or not.
Finally, all bars in a given region will include that region's ancestral recipe in it's Order Food menu. You can also add any of them to custom restaurant menus. Your sims will get the same buffs for eating them as if they made them themselves.
Club Interaction Groups and Holiday Goals
There are club requirements for each ancestral region, so if you want to create clubs based on common regional ancestors, you can. For club activities, I've added:
Talk About The Old Country
Research Genealogy
Tell Family Stories
There have been a few social interactions added for those with common ancestral regions:
Talk about (Region) Politics
Talk about (Region) Sports
Talk about (Region) History
These are available on sims who share an ancestral region.
For holiday goals, I've added
Eat Ancestral Food
Honor Ancestors
Tell Family Stories
Achievements
There are currently 8 ancestor-related Achievements available. More as I come up with them
Extremely Multicultural - 5 or more Ancestral Regions
Notable Ancestor - 1 or more Notable Ancestor
Legendary Ancestor - 1 or more Legendary Ancestor
Cops And Robbers - Both Notable Criminal and Law Enforcement Ancestors
Family Bidness - Both Legendary Pirate and Notable Criminal Ancestors
Famous Family - 5 or more Notable or Legendary Ancestors
Bridging The Divide - Both Legendary Werewolf and Vampire ancestors
The Aristocrats! - 2 or more Legendary Royal Ancestors
Mediums and Seances
Mediums have an easier time finding their ancestors, since they can just talk to them. There’s an additional interaction on the seance table called ‘Ask About Ancestors’, that will find ancestral traits for your Medium. Mediums can also ask the spirits about another sim's ancestors, if they are present at the seance.
Mediums can hold a Seance Party, a goaled event where the goal is to find your partygoers ancestors. But you can hold a seance at any party if you are a Medium.
Finally, any sim can go to a rabbit-hole Seance and find out where they are from, find ancestors and talk to them, for a fee. The more your sim knows about their background, the more luck they’ll have at the Seance.
Ancestral Spirits
If you have a Notable or Legendary Ancestor, you can summon them to commune and give you positive buffs. In order for them to show up, you need to honor your ancestors periodically using an incense burner, among many other ways. This increases a hidden ancestral favor statistic. A high ancestral favor statistic will help you find notable and legendary ancestors as well.
Ancestral favor will also bring your sim Luck and improve their Balance, if you have the Enchanted by Nature pack.
You can honor your sim's ancestors and earn Ancestral favor by burning incense, honoring them at a gravestone or Mountain Shrine, or making an offering at a body of water or into a fire. Sims can also honor their ancestors by viewing one of their ancestor's portraits.
In addition, your sim receives ancestral favor bonuses when you perform interactions related to the ancestor. In other words, painting makes your painter ancestors happy, etc. This includes having the same career as an ancestor.
When you earn Ancestral Favor, you will see an icon/indicator appear over your sim's head (borrowed from the Family-Oriented trait) for moment.
Still To Do
I liked almost all of the suggestions I've gotten from you all, and have a whole list of things that I'd like to add in a subsequent release, like Ancestral Quests, Geneologist career, a Seance Vendor that can provide genealogical information for a fee, and more.
Keep making suggestions, as I may add them later (or maybe sooner, if they're easy to implement)!
As always, your suggestions are very welcome. Thanks again for your support!
Change Log
1.0.0b, Initial Patreon Preview Prerelease
1.0.1b, Patreon Prerelease, bug fixes, ancestral region interactions, recipes, club and holiday features
1.0.2b, Patreon Release Candidate 1, bug fixes, scholarship redesign (more integrated into existing scholarship functionality)
1.0.3b, Patreon Release Candidate 2, bug fixes, refactoring notable and legendary ancestors to have home regions, rewrite of all notable and legendary biographies to be more individualized, more bug fixes, additional interactions
1.0.4, Public Release! (finally), bug fixes
1.0.5, Patch 1.110 Update
1.0.6, Another Patch 1.110 Update
1.0.7, Fix to restore STBL Ids to previous value to enable existing translations to work again.
1.0.8, Patch fix for Enchanted by Nature
1.0.9, Fixes for patch fix for Enchanted by Nature, extra patch fixes, progress buffs from research
1.1.0, 2025-07-26, Added ancestry in Tomarang, Ciudad Enamorada, Ravenwood, Nordhaven, and Innigreen, three new legendary ancestors, bug fixes, gameplay adjustments.
1.1.1, 10/2/2025, New features: Rootsy, worldwide ancestor generation, Ancestor Reunions, Various patch fixes reported by BE
1.1.2, 1/24/2026, Bug fixes, restricted finding recipes to region they come from again, enabled use of memorial incense burner for honoring ancestors, added more tooltips
1.1.3, 2/1/2026, Bug fix release -- better filtering of regional recipes by pack requirements
1.1.4, 2/5/2026, Patch fix for Royalty and Legacy
1.1.5, 5/12/2026,
Translations
French (also attached below): LuniverSims
Chinese by ABonnie
Comments (90)
Still one of my favorite mods around ❤️ so glad i can play Sims again! I've missed your mods!
hi i have holiday celebrations kit installed but better exceptions says I don't?
Sorry for the delay in responding -- crazy week at my day job. Hmm, that' s odd! I doubt they've changed the kit ID. But I ran into something similar once where I used an object from the Sims Sessions and was surprised to discover that not everyone had it (though it was an automatic download). I'll look at what this requires from that kit -- maybe I can eliminate the dependency on it. Thanks for the feedback!
Looking at a Better Exceptions conflict report... do I have to choose between this mod and Lumpinou's Milestones Expanded mod? (Type of conflict: DDS Resource)
Sorry it took so long to get back to you! Crazy week at my day job. A DDS Resource is an image. I don't recall including any DDS resources directly, but I did run a direct draw compatibility tool that might have created some from my DST images? if you can give me any numbers that it mentioned in the error, I can see which image that is. For that matter, I can probably just renumber mine so that it doesn't conflict if I knew which one it was. it's probably not an error that would cause problems. At worst it will use either their image or my image for something, and it could look weird. If you can get me the alphanumeric sequence it mentioned with the error (it's a hexidecimal number) that it mentioned, I can probably fix it to not conflict. if all else fails I'll install Lumpinou's mod and see if I can figure out which one it is. Thanks for the feedback!
Hi! I’ve just finished a Polish translation of your mod and wanted to share it with you. Here’s the link: https://www.patreon.com/ToomuchPL/posts/family-history-169331321?collection=2377273 If you’d like, feel free to add it to your mod description so Polish players can find the translation more easily. Thank you for your amazing work and for sharing your mods with the community!
You're fantastic, a genius! This is absolutely spectacular, what in the.. anyway, this mod totally exceeds my expectations. Thank you very much!
Does this conflict with Lumpinou's Milestones Expanded? (Seems to be DDS Resources---I know nothing about modding, so Idk about anything).
Hi there, I summoned my sim's ancestral spirits... but they won't leave, haha. I've tried banishing, releasing, and communing. Is there something I'm missing?
OMG...had that happen with in-laws once. Anyway... I'm starting to wonder whether I ever set up the tuning to have them go away. I based it on Island Spirits, but now that you mention it I am not sure I ever tested having them go away! Yikes. They might? But...I can't specifically recall now. I'll look into it and even if they do eventually go away on their own, I'll make sure there's a 'go away' type interaction so that you don't have to wait for it. Thanks for the feedback! Sorry for the complication, and I'll get that fixed in the next update.
I don't know if this is true for everyone if I have a mod conflict, but, for me, adding the "tell family stories" tradition to my holiday broke the UI and caused all the traditions to stack on top of each other. Just wanted to let you know.
Sorry for the delay in answering -- had some RL stuff come up. I'm not seeing a problem on a Mac, and about 99% of the time with icon issues, that means that I used the wrong size icon there and also that you're on Windows. I sometimes miss these, since I work on a Mac and that problem never happens. I'll review all the holiday icons and make sure that I'm using the correct size there, Thanks a ton for the feedback, since I can't find these issues on a Mac! I'll get an update with a corrected icon posted as soon as possible. Thanks again!
hav you thought about making an addition to the family tree in the simology? That would be really cool.
I missed this question until just now. Yes, I have. The problem is that the built-in Sims genealogy doesn't really go back that far -- just a few generations (though it might have changed a bit with dynasties). Also, I would have to have it fill in all the intervening generations, and that would be very many for an ancestor from a few hundred years ago.
The “Populate Random Ancestors” interaction create new sims or just give traits to sims already in my save file?
It gives traits to existing sims in the world who've never been played (eg. townies only).
hello i'm having a problem with some of the icons from this mod one in the notifications tab and the other from the notebook, grey with the lama
Hello, Thanks for letting me know! It's been hard to find all the broken icons, since they all appear for me. I think a combination of either being the wrong size and/or being from a missing pack are the main culprits. I've been working on including all the ones used in the package files to avoid missing pack issues, but it's taking me a while. Thanks again for the feedback!
can this be used with origins mod?
I am currently using both and they don't seem to clash at all. But they aren't integrated so if you want ancestors and family members to have consistent origins, you'll need to go through and manually assign their origins yourself.
Hello! Thank you for this very interesting mod! I was really looking forward to playing with it, but unfortunately I encountered an error… Invalid Tuning Mods SimsonianLibrary_FamilyHistory.package Invalid Tuning: devnull_recipe_Food_Windenberg_CrownRoast_Single devnull_recipe_Food_Windenberg_CrownRoast_Large devnull_recipe_Food_Bar_CordeliaCrownRoast Maybe you’ll have time and the opportunity to check what the issue with these recipes might be… EA changed the XML structure of recipes, and because of that some authors’ recipes are currently producing errors. In any case, your work is brilliant and truly impressive! Thank you for expanding the possibilities of the game! Wishing you inspiration and creative success! 😊
Sorry to take a bit to get back to you -- RL has been very busy lately. That error is probably due to you not having the Holiday Stuff Pack installed. It was free, but it was released quite a while ago. That's where the crown roast recipe comes from. When I wrote this mod, I (unwisely) referred to recipes from all sorts of packs (the ancestral recipes). This unfortunately created dependencies on those packs when you load the game. You should typically only get one error per session at the beginning when it notices that the parent recipe is missing (crown roast). It doesn't otherwise cause problems as far as I know. I'm doing final testing on an update that splits out all the pack specific stuff like recipes into different .package files so you can remove the ones for packs you don't have installed. Let me know if this is obviously wrong (such as if you have the Holiday Stuff Pack), or if you run into other issues. I will have the update out very soon -- I was hoping it would be this weekend, but things keep coming up at home today. Thanks for the feedback and keep an eye out for the updated version to fix the recipe errors!
I keep getting an exception alert because of this mod, and I've downloaded the most recent files
Hello, sorry it took a while to get back to you. I was distracted by Armageddon. In any case, if you could send me the contents of any lastException.txt files it creates next to your mod folder, BE exception reports (click SAVE at the top) or MCCommand exception html files, it would be super helpful to troubleshoot the problem (either paste it in here, or email to simsonianlibrary@gmail.com). BUT, there's a good chance that the exception is due to missing packs. This mod depends on a large number of packs for regional recipes. Basically most of the ones with maps. it does try to only reference the recipes that correspond with packs you have installed, but it seems that the presence of them in the package files triggers BE reports. So, I've been working on a new version that adds some more ancestors for Ondarion, and also splits off all the pack-specific recipes into separate files so that you can uninstall the ones for packs you don't own. I don't think it causes any gameplay problems since it doesn't ever try to use the recipes for packs you are missing, but it does try to read them when the game starts, and that can trigger the exception warning. it could be a different problem, so it would still be super helpful to send me the exception messages, but I hope to have the new version posted this weekend, impending nuclear war notwithstanding. Thanks for the feedback! Hoping to get that update posted over the next few days.
Your mods are a treat for Anthropology students. ♥
That's high praise! Thanks!
I found another bug. Sorry to bug you with another bug. This seems to only happen if a lot has the "spooky" trait. A random ghost will show up and honor ancestors with incense. They will kneel at the memorial table and stay there...forever. They don't leave at sunrise and they do not take care of their needs. This leads to a very stinky, exhausted, hungry ghost that just lingers in the house until I remove the memorial shrine. This all sounds great from a storytelling perspective. Very creepy, right? Also very annoying. Maybe this could easily be solved by preventing ghosts from honoring the ancestors? They are the ancestors, so maybe they don't need to honor themselves. We don't want to give all the ghosts a big ego. I can't imagine that would go well.
I hope I can replicate that in my game, since I am absolutely laughing at the thought of it. That is the creepiest thing I've seen the game do in a long time, lol. It's perfect timing to report it, since I'm currently updating it and the Archaeology Kit to add support for Ondarion. I was just noticing while testing that even household sims were using the honor ancestors on incense way too often. I just turned down the autonomous attraction of that (it was a bit boosted), and I'll yeah, probably just prohibit ghosts from honoring ancestors autonomously. I hadn't really thought about ghosts doing genealogy, but now with the ghost powers stuff added in Life and Death, I should think about that. Thanks for the feedback and the report!
By chance I found this mod. This is beyond incredible! You have put so much thought and detail. I can only imagine how much more you might incorporate with the Royal & Legacy EP. Sims can come from Royal family and not even know it. Thank you so very much for this.
One of the things I'm currently thinking about is, 'why didn't they know they had royal ancestors?' Was their ancestor's line deposed? Did it fail to produce heirs? Or is it somehow connected to one of the other dynasties? Or are they descended from a secret child? Maybe all of those should be possibilities? I'm doing a lot of staring into space thinking about these things right now, lol. It gets me away from doomscrolling.
Thank you so so much! I only learned of this mod today but for so long have been sad my new sims don't really have much background.
Me when I'm like "I'm just finding this mod NOW?!"
Right? Imagine the legacy game play with this mod
I can't find the "populate random ancestors" cheat for some reason in the shift+click menu? has it been removed or is it something on my end (a conflict or something)?
if testingcheats are enabled and you shift-click on the active sim, you should see a pie menu category named Family History (Debug), and inside that, you'll find the Populate Random Ancestors option, along with some debug tools to set the 'breakthrough level' for their next family discovery. I just tried it and it is still there. If you don't see it, let me know and I'll take another look.
Hi, I hope it is okay I am posting in here, was not sure how to share, and maybe someone else has the same issue. I have been getting a BE report saying there is bad tuning from this mod. I re-downloaded and tried again, and still getting it. I checked the tuning, and it seems to be related to recipes from Forgotten Hollow. Could it be because I don't have the vampires pack? I can share the screenshot of the report. Is it still fine to keep playing despite what the notification says? The reason for the report is : [cjiang] Error occurred within the tag named 'final_product' (value: U) (UnavailablePackSafeResourceError,) and the invalid tunings are: devnull_recipe_Food_ForgottenHollow_PlasmafruitSalad-Small devnull_recipe_Food_ForgottenHollow_PlasmafruitSalad-Large devnull_recipe_Food_ForgottenHollow_PlasmafruitSalad_Medium devnull_recipe_Food_Bar_StraudSalad
Hello, yes, this is from not having the Vampire pack. Did this happen after you updated to version 1.1.2 (just posted this weekend)? The 1.1.2 version should avoid this problem (unless I missed something), since you will now have to be in Forgotten Hollow to find that recipe, and that is only possible if you have the Vampire pack. I would make sure you update to version 1.1.2 posted above. If you only got the error once, you don't need to do anything else. If your sim somehow learned the recipe above and you get an error when you try to look at the recipe picker, you'd want to remove the mod, start up and save with that sim (to remove the learned recipe from them), then you can put it back and continue with the mod installed again. But that would only be if it's an ongoing error, otherwise, you should be fine.
Fair enough because not everyone will buy it . I think we could all see how it plays when the pack comes out for the ones who buy it (I am planning to for my own reasons haha) and I will see maybe there would be complimentary with features that match but the royalty stuff and the ability to research your ancestry is interesting. I am sure EA didn’t put that in there so the buffs/trait could go well with their system maybe. Let’s see! I am excited
Can you imagine how this will pair well with the new expansion pack?
I'm thinking about that a lot, lol. But not sure yet. I don't want to have it require the new pack, but I want to tie it in somehow. Probably something related to the Royalty stuff, since there are royal ancestors, but perhaps more!
Where do I find the incense? That option does not come up on any of the in game incense holders. I don't see the water option either.
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. The incense comes with Spa Day -- I JUST noticed that there's one that comes with Life and Death as well, but I will have to fix it to work as it is programmed differently than the SpaDay one. The incense needs to be lit to Honor Ancestors with it as well. The water option should work on any inter-actable pond or fishing sign.
hey is it base game compatible?
Unfortunately, no, you need most of the packs that have maps with this mod. I've been looking for some ways to allow it to work with fewer packs, but dealing with the recipes without having dependencies on the packs they are found in is a problem.
Hello, this mod is incredible, i love it ! thank you so much for your work. unfortunaly, it cause a Last exeption on my game. Ican't send it here so I'll try via email.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/143651693?collection=1836777
My Spanish translation for the Simsonian Library mod, which you can find on my Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/RoshySims
I wanted to let you know this mod is throwing a better exceptions MCC error. I tested all my cc and mods and this is the only one that throws the error. I love what it adds to the game and appreciate your work
Could you send me that error? The ugly looking stack trace text would be great. Either post it back here or send it to simsonianlibrary@gmail.com? I'm using both Better Exceptions and MCC and neither one is complaining about FamilyHistory. I ran the patch checker yesterday as well, and no problems were found with it. If you get me the contents of the lastException.txt file, I might be able to get to the bottom of it. Thanks for the feedback!
So I had an activity without a name pop up in my small business activities list, under hobbies, and I've narrowed it down to this mod. It uses the shovel icon, so at first I was thinking maybe it's the metal detector activity and it's just missing the correct string? Made sense for a business, until I learned that it's not listed as an activity so hmm.. I then cross referenced it with the club activities and same story there: a shovel icon under hobbies, but no name attached. Then I went through the club activities listed here and discovered that I do see "Talk About The Old Country" under social, but I don't see "Research Genealogy" nor "Tell Family Stories". I did find an extra activity under hobbies called "Research Gravestones" which isn't there when I take the mod out though, so maybe that's the "Research Genealogy" one? I also made sure to check the holidays as well, but all 3 holiday goals show up and exactly as listed here so they are fine! Anyway just thought you might want to know! :-) Edit: This was all tested on a sim who isn't actively doing anything with the mod yet, by the way, just in case that matters!
Oh, I'll check through them and make sure all the titles are configured correctly. Knowing it's the shovel icon narrows it down. I intend for all of those activities to be available for clubs, businesses and the new special venues/getaways eventually. They all use the same tuning, but with additional flags and strings for each way they can be used. I've been slowing putting together a genealogist career/small business to go with this, and I probably left a fragment of that work showing in the latest release as a small business activity, but apparently hadn't added the title string yet. I'll fix that! Thanks for the feedback and detailed report!
Which one do i download lol
1.1.1
hey! found a diary but i can't place it!!
I just looked at the diary objects, their slot configurations, and ran the DX11 fix. However, I didn't see any likely suspects or obvious issues. Which book was it? And where were you trying to place it? Thanks for the feedback!
do i need to download all the zip files?
Generally download just the latest zip file (you only need one). That's 1.1.0 right now. FYI: The latest version of Family History (1.1.0) adds a dependency on For Rent, and Lovestruck due to some recipes. If you don't have those, you can use 1.0.9.
Hey! So excited to play with this mod. Better Exceptions is returning broken mod reports related to the vampire items. It is the only EP I don't have, is this why? I didn't notice any mention in this mods requirements around needing to have all
It's probably the Straud Salad recipe you can learn. It uses Plasma Fruit from the Vampires mod. I will get a better list of pack requirements together. It seems like the recipes cause a pack dependency if they use a recipe from the pack, even if you don't try to actually use them. If I can find a pack-safe way to handle the recipes I'll switch to that, but haven't come up with one yet. I think it should be safe to play aside from the LE. The only problem would be if you learned the recipe, since it could cause problems in the recipe pickers. However, since you can only learn the recipe in Forgotten Hollow, and you don't have a Forgotten Hollow, that shouldn't be possible. Thanks for the feedback. If I can find a better way to handle recipes from packs, I'll post an update!
https://luniversims.fr/links/link/687-lhistoire-de-famille-un-mod-de-simsonian-library-%C3%A9dition-le-26072025-fix-de-traduction-du-mod/ + nouveau lien de traduction en date du 26.7.2025 --> https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/odedzyqub45q078lqumhl/1_SimsonianLibrary_FamilyHistory_Correctif_26.7.25_TRAD_FR_Luniversims.fr.package?rlkey=tj99f16txmeiacwp800w1ldn1&st=xp1pvffa&dl=0 --> Hello Simsonian, I have corrected the translation and here is the new link attached. Please make the change. Have a nice day and take care.
I've updated the links and the attached file. Thanks so much!
Thank you for all your work! Will you include the latest worlds to the mod in the future?
Yes! I have an update that I'm testing right now that will include all the regions up through Nordhaven (inclusive), and includes 3-4 new ancestors to go with them.
https://luniversims.fr/links/link/687-lhistoire-de-famille-un-mod-de-simsonian-library-%C3%A9dition-le-20022025-fix-de-traduction-du-mod/ Mise à jour de la traduction, merci de la télécharger de nouveau et de la joindre au mod, bon jeu Sims4.
Hello, I only just found this mod today after the nature expansion pre-patch update. I seem to have some issues though, I am doing research and 'getting clues" but no buffs at all and nothing in the notebook indicating where ancestors are from. In the travel button it tells me I can go to the San Myshuno Hospital and Police Department and there I can use computers to (check birth certificates & records) however I don't get any outcomes at all she just spends time on the computer and it ends. I also purchased the metal detector and it produces dirt piles but i cannot interact with the dirt piles at all. I've also gone to a local seance and it told me to light incenses but there isn't any option to light the incense for an ancestor (unless I am using the wrong item or using it in a wrong way?) idk... I just seem to be doing things but getting no outcomes... is there some sort of required download for this mod (such as lot 51 or something similar) that might affect the way the mod operates?... I didn't see any indication that anything else is required for this mod in the information Ive read so far.
I was just able to replicate those problems, thanks for reporting them! It looks like a few more things changed in the patch than I realized, and I'll need to make some more changes and post another update. Thanks again for the feedback!
So I have the Better Exceptions mod to tell me what mods need updating or deletion and whatnot and it's telling me that the mod is either broken or needs to be updated and that it failed to load and should be removed or updated like I had mentioned earlier so is there something I can do to fix this or no?
I'm also using Better Exceptions, and I'm not getting an error from this mod, so can you check that you are using the latest version of Family History? I double checked that I'm using the latest Better Exceptions here, version 3.1.4. There was an error in version 1.0.5 (no longer available up there). The latest one is 1.0.7, and that's what I'm using along with Better Exceptions in my own games.
I do have one small suggestion. I think your sims should be able to research gravestones even if they moved out of their starting region. My sims started in San Myshuno and now live in Willow Creek. They're actually the only sims in their family, too.
I think that makes sense. Since the Sims added a lot more stuff for 'death' (lol) in general in the Life and Death pack (and new gravestones, mausoleums, etc), I should probably just remove the region restriction on gravestones now. I know that in my own real life family tree, we have gravestones all over the place, including one unmarked one somewhere on an island off Baja California (lost on an expedition last century...weird story...anyway). I'll add that to the list of changes to make for the next version. I think I should probably add some research family tree interactions to a few of the rabbit-hole buildings in Ravenwood, too. Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion!
This is fkawesome. Thanks soooo much!!!!
Hello Simsonian, first of all i just find out about your mod and i am in love, its such a good idea and so complete!! But if you take suggestion i have one (so sorry if its already possible and didnt see it) I would like the possibility of making the townies know their family histories without having to do all the gameplay. I love the gameplay, it is really cool but I am also someone who likes to start a game with lore and I often develop the worlds and families with each new game for my main sims so it would really help me not to have to go between all the townie families to make them discover their origins. I hope I am clear, I am sorry, it is a bit long and English is not my first language. I understand if this is not the purpose of the mod and again thank you for it.
If I understand your question correctly, it should already do that. :) When you build even a little bit of a friendly relationship with another sim (a score of '5' out of 100), you should be able to select Family History -> Discuss Family Backgrounds on them. if that NPC sim doesn't have have any ancestral traits yet, it should randomly pick 3 of them using the same logic that it chooses ancestral regions and ancestors for player sims. Let me know if this doesn't work! (or if I misunderstood the question)
Hi! I'm really excited to play with all of the features of this mod, but when I try to travel using it my game crashes. Is it maybe not up to date? I think you're a really innovative creator, I hope I get to play with your mod fully soon.
Hmm, I don't know of any bugs right now, but I sometimes discover them because people report them. :) It will help if I can get some more information to try to replicate the problem here. When you travel, if you have ancestral regions, it activates a buff when you end up in one of your ancestral regions. This is probably where it's getting an error. So, does this sim have any ancestral regions? If so, which ones, and is it crashing when you travel to one of them? What does the crash look like? Is it throwing an exception, returning to the menu or region screen or crashing all the way back to the desktop? Also, do you have any ancestral regions for maps that you don't have packs for, for example, if you had Tartosa as an ancestral region, but didn't own Wedding Stories? Thanks for the feedback, and if you can get me some or all of the information above it would be very helpful!
Hi Simsonian, first of all, your mod is fantastic! Second I wanted to know if your mode was compatible with Royalty mod? For example if an ancestor had the hidden trait Noble or Monarch, will Family mod mention it? Also it creates an imagined genealogy but does it take into consideration the actual Sims ancestors from a family (for ex if we play decades challenge)? Thanks in advance.
I remember trying out the Royalty Mod a long time ago (I think she rewrote it since then). That's a great idea! When I add an integration with another mod, I just need to make sure that it works both with and without the other mod, so assuming I can come up with a way, I'll add a connection to that. I'll grab the latest version this weekend and give it a try. Thanks for the suggestion!
also seconding in thinking its a good idea to add compatibility and integration/add on for Franks language and like the townie demographics mod ect.
Would it be possible to make this work with Frankk's language mod where maybe some of the family memorabilia can't be examined (at all or fully?) until/unless the Sim(s) know the languages? Thanks!
I've talked to Frankk a while ago about integrating the Archaeology Kit with his LB mod. I should take a look at doing so again as well as this mod, as it would fit in with it quite well. I'll put it on my list of maybe features -- It would be easy to make this work with LB, but less easy to make it optional. I'l have to put my thinking cap on.
Will Family History be updated to include Ravenwood and its culture? When I checked out Ravenwood, I thought this neighborhood seemed like it's modeled after the Romanian cultural beliefs and practices from that country. I could be wrong, but it never hurts to think of Ravenwood as Romania.
Yes, and Romania is a great match! I might move some of the current ancestors around a bit so that some of them come from Ravenwood. I'm also working on adding the other newer regions to both Family History and the Archaeology Kit.
https://luniversims.fr/links/link/687-lhistoire-de-famille-un-mod-de-simsonian-library/ Hello Simsonian, the article is published, the translation is at the top of the article in the data, I'll put the link under this word for ease. I'm glad it's published. I'll keep an eye out if you add anything else to it, thanks for all your fabulous work. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/q5qjoltwgbvhwpoq43dfl/SimsonianLibrary_FamilyHistory_TRAD_FR_LuniverSims.fr.package?rlkey=4vjd9qr8x91b8vnd83sprarb1&st=cbqte0ax&dl=0
Good evening, I've just finished the translation, it's done, I'm glad. I'll have to check in proofreading, more careful and see a bit more in game. I'll send it to you very soon. Sorry for the time, it's a long job and I'm alone for the Mods section of our forum, I do everything at the same time, article, translations of other more common mods. I've been able to read everything and test some of it, and it's a mod that takes time to play. Once again, you've done a great job and are so complete, I'm proud to have translated it. I'll be in touch soon, good night. ;)
That's excellent! Thank you so much for what you do!
I'm still working on it, I'm about halfway through. I want to get it right, so I'm taking my time. The translation is coming soon, this mod is so good!
Thanks, I appreciate you making translations available!
I FORGOT TO MAKE THIS POST PUBLIC AT FIRST! (sigh...shakes head) Well, it is now. Sorry about that.
What a job, fabulous mod. I'm going to plan the trad in my evenings, I'm going to take some time, I'm sorting out some health worries too. Thanks for sharing.;)
Thanks, and I hope your health improves!