The Story So Far

So far in my family history project I have catalogued factual information on 160 members of my family going back eight generations. I had hoped to investigate particular individuals further, perhaps learning more about their lives, their surroundings,their work. However my experience investigating John Barclay and his son James has taught me it's relatively easy to find the key events in a person's life: birth, marriage, children, death; however it's more difficult to fill in the detail. Clearly I now need to decide on my next steps in this project: should I gather more event dates for more people further widening the family records; should I try to get more event dates for the people I've already identified, for there are certainly gaps; should I focus on some key tools and resources to help me with my research or should I investigate occupations, locations, relevant world events that my ancestors would have encountered during the course of their lives?