When creating a family for multiple generations, do you play all of the descendants?

I start with my first 2 sims, once they have children I play the kids until they become young adults, including giving them spouses, then move both out and play whichever I decided was my second generation, this pattern continues for as long as I play this save. I think I have one save on the 9th generation. I have had other saves with even more generations, but adding new packs corrupted those save files, so now, when a new pack comes out I don't play my legacy save until I am sure it is not going to corrupt it.