In the sticky post, near the end of the post, it says "If you ever need to restore one or more of the games, just choose the appropriate savegame file(s) from your backup folder and copy them back into the Virtual Families folder (in My Documents\LDW or ~user/Library/Preferences/LDW)".

What that will do is replace your (passed) family with the paused version that you backed up a little while ago. Essentially, you are going back in time to try again, without messing up anything else!

It is possible that it may not help, with your family members being older. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done about that, however, the backup method can help you with another family if you start backing up your savegame files eariler!