@135Lee135 When you say you see your recent family, do you see them in the state you'd expect them to be in currently? For example, are they the correct ages and wearing the correct clothing? If you load a different household within that save, are those sims living in the right houses and the appropriate ages, etc.? Have you built any lots since the time when you were playing the older household, and are those lots intact?
Essentially what I'm asking is, is the save overall mostly in a state that matches what you'd expect to see currently, or is it partially or entirely reverted to the state it was in when the sim that should be dead was still alive? I wouldn't expect you to know every detail of the save in its current or past state, but you might for example remember that you built or renovated a community lot more recently, or you added an inactive household to be friends with your own sims.
Please also find the full path to the folder Sims 4 is reading. Here's how:
https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2018/07/how-to-find-your-user-folder/
Please list that path for me. Open exactly that location, up to "The Sims 4," open saves, and use Windows key-shift-S to take a screenshot of the contents. Include the file sizes and modified dates. Please post that screenshot here.