There is one way to get your custom characters as townies forever: just set up a custom neighborhood as you want it, from SaraMK and Jordi's great guides (put clean templates in place etc), then make a backup of the neighborhood. If you want to revert to your original townies, just delete the old neighborhood from the Neighborhoods folder and replace it with your backup. I like keeping an OFB neighborhood because you can start off with minimal NPCs. You can adjust your new NPCs in-game with Christianlov's great new DNA fixer after you give them face-lifts (available at MTS2_christianlov_769393_CPackEditor_0.2.4.128_Release_x86.zip). I know you are asking whether you can transfer townies, but using Pescado's terrain modifier means you can make your backup neighborhood quite new each time. I don't know if this helps?