Sounds like they followed the model used by the Roman Catholic Church, also referred to as "the hot potato method"

Secrets like this are corrosive. My grandmother acts like he did the right thing, refers to the abandoned family as "bad people" My mom met 1 of her half brothers, it went nicely. But mom got sick and we lost her 8 years ago, and my grandmas refusal to talk about it (then and now) leaves so many gaps in the whole…

My mom's dad had a pretty big secret, and went to great lengths to hide it. A few years after he died, mom discovered that he had been married before, had 5 children who he left behind, along with his wife. They lived in a small town in the midwest, along with his extended family, and apparently he left them all,…