Legal Question in Family Law in California

You can file a petition for divorce and serve the summons by publication. You can also get orders from the family court awarding you custody of the children without giving notice to your wife. The court will award you the custody of the children and will forbid visits to your wife unless she is supervised. It's not a good idea to wait two years before doing something, but you can still start moving things in the court in your favor beginning now. Once you have obtained the orders, you can get assistance from the police in finding your children. With a pending family law case, you can also subpoena the family members to testify as to whether they know the where abouts of their daughter and the children, under oath. If they testify they risk perjury if they lie while under oath. Once the police are involved they can actually wire tap the family members to see if they are communicating with the mother. The penalty for absconding the children is full custody to the other party. Once you find your family you can register your custody orders and the police in the state where they are will actually enforce your orders by picking up the children and delivering them to you.