Usually when we set out to trace our family history our goal is to "trace our family history". Now this is fine if you want to go back to Adam and Eve but it is best if you put some goals in place to guide your efforts.
When creating a tree I recommend that you set a generational level as your initial goal and then complete that tree before you go any further. For instance your goal can be:
5 Generations
That means that until you have all the tree elements for 5 generations (basically a tree of 31 people you, 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, and 16 Great Great Grandparents).
It is far to common for someone to find an "easy" branch of their tree and start running with it for 15 or more generations and ignore the "harder" branches. Now of course you can run into dead ends or research that you simply can not do (ancestors from overseas may dissapear into the church records oblivion) but you should be prepared to exhaust all resources you have available to keep your tree nicely pruned.
The payoff in the long run will be greatly appreciated by the other leaves in your tree.
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