踪 rarely appears alone in modern Chinese. It's most commonly seen in compounds: 踪迹 (zōngjì, traces), 失踪 (shīzōng, to go missing), 追踪 (zhuīzōng, to track), 行踪 (xíngzōng, whereabouts).
memory
The character has 足 (foot) on the left and 宗 (ancestor/clan) on the right - think of it as 'the footprints your ancestors left behind,' i.e., traces.
足 plants 踪 in the foot family - a trace or track is what a foot leaves behind. Same radical in 跑 run, 跳 jump, 踢 kick. The full square form is used here on the left, unlike 路 where 足 contracts.
宗 gives the sound zōng directly. There may be a faint semantic echo too - following 踪迹 (tracks) parallels following ancestral lines - but the main job is pure phonetic, mirroring 综, 棕, 鬃.
