Hi there amandria
You can indeed search Rootschat for potential relatives - if you go down to the bottom of the page, the black part, you will see an option for
Surname Interests
Click on that, and there's an option to search for your family names to find who else is researching them, and for entering the names so that future researchers can find you.
And yes - i've found remote relatives here, and in fact was in touch with one in Australia just this morning as we continue to work at the common part of our trees.