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They aren't looking for the perfect people to be foster parents. They are looking for those committed to fostering, learning how to foster and those who have the ability to use adversity as a learning experience. Be truthful about all the things you have mentioned. Be truthful about what you learned from those experiences. They have probably help make you a better parent. you know more now than when you were younger and hopefully, you are so much wiser.
I don't think they will be looking at those situations and saying that you are responsible for them. You are not responsible for the things an ex-DIL might have done, or will say. Considering the circumstances, they will take her comments based on the information you provide about her. If there's bad blood, then they will know ahead of time what to expect. It takes a lot for CPS to take a child away form a parent, so the fact that they took your GS and gave him to his Dad says a lot.
The home study is done to help you work through all of this stuff and to allow you to ask yourself if this is what you want to do. It helps them place children with you who fit the type of child you can handle. Can you imagine if a person didn't disclose abuse and an abused child was placed with them? How would the foster parent take care of that child, if their own abuse had not been addressed? If you learned anything from your childhood, it might be how not to parent. You can show you have progressed and that's important, not how bad your parents may have been.
Don't worry about how old your house is. Mine was built in 1904. You will want to put a fire escape ladder upstairs though and it might be necessary to put some kind of barrier at the bottom of the windows. They want to license you. You are needed. So plug ahead, answer those questions and be positive about your experience because it sounds like you have the tools needed to be a great foster parent!
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