Legal Question in Family Law in California

California does not recognize Family Law jurisdiction over people who have not resided in California for the preceeding six months. If you want to act sooner, you will have to file where you currently reside, or resided last for six months. If you do wait until California has jurisdiction, yes you will have to at least make efforts to have him served before you could proceed in his absence. There are various options, however, for doing that, and if you know where he is, it is not too hard for an attorney familiar with international litigation to get the service of process handled, provide he is in a country that abides by the international conventions and treaties governing such things. If we're talking North Korea or Iran, you may have a problem, but most countries are not a problem. I have dealt with that issue in numerous international commercial litigation and arbitration cases in my career, and if you follow the relevant proceedures it is relatively easy to accomplish.