Nora Ellison

Nora Ellison edits FamilyLine Guide and writes most of its checklists. She started the site after an afternoon spent on the phone with a relative who had been told, very convincingly, that her bank account was frozen. Nora tests every phone setting she describes on a real handset before it goes into a guide, and she reads each draft aloud, because if a sentence is awkward to say it will be awkward to follow. She checks facts against the FTC, FCC, Social Security and phone-maker support pages, and she dates every update so you know how fresh a page is. She keeps a paper list of important numbers taped inside her own kitchen cabinet, and she thinks you should too.

How Nora works

Before a guide is published, Nora follows her own steps on a phone, one tap at a time, and writes down any place she hesitated. Then she reads the draft aloud. If a sentence trips her tongue, it is rewritten. She asks one question of every checklist: could a nervous person do this with a cup of tea in the other hand?

She does not invent stories about readers and she does not claim credentials the site cannot back up. She writes as an editor who checks sources, tests menus and admits when something varies by carrier. If you spot a mistake, write to her through the contact page.

Away from the screen, Nora keeps a paper list of important numbers inside her kitchen cabinet and refuses to answer unknown calls during dinner. She would like you to do the same, within reason. She also believes that a good guide leaves out more than it puts in, so she cuts anything that does not help a reader do something concrete. Her favorite messages come from readers who say a checklist took twenty minutes, not two hours.

Her work on this site covers the parent cheat sheet, the grandparent checklist, scripts for impostor agency calls, landline blockers and family rules. She does not answer questions about individual numbers, because no honest editor could, but she is glad to hear when a guide missed something your family ran into.

Nora's guides range from the practical, such as phone settings and call blockers, to the delicate, such as helping a relative with memory loss or talking with someone who has just paid a scammer. She says the second kind takes the longest to write, because the words matter more than the steps. Below you will find every guide she has published here, with the date each was last checked. If you want her view on one, the corrections inbox is the place.