The RootsSearch App -- Finding Records You Weren't Looking For

The RootsSearch App is not one of those listed on the FamilySearch.org App Gallery, but it likely should be. It has been around for a while and has been recently expanded. From the listing in the Chrome Web Store, here is a summary of the functions:

Search across multiple genealogy sites for matching records.RootsSearch allows you to search the most popular genealogy websites for records relating to your ancestors. 

When viewing an ancestor in an online tree or a record from a genealogy website, RootsSearch allows you to search for matching records on other genealogy record sites. 

RootsSearch works on:

• Ancestry
• BillionGraves
• FamilySearch
• Find A Grave
• findmypast
• Genealogie Online
• Open Archives
• WeRelate 

RootsSearch allows you to search on:

• American Ancestors
• Ancestry
• Archives
• BillionGraves
• Chronicling America
• FamilySearch
• Find A Grave
• findmypast.co.uk
• findmypast.com
• Fold3
• Genealogie Online
• Genealogy Bank
• Geneanet.org
• Genealogy Gophers
• Geni
• Google
• Mocavo
• MyHeritage
• Newspapers
• NLA Trove
• Open Archives
• USGenWebWeRelate
• WikiTree
• World Vital Records

The program is a Chrome App and the icon appears on the Extensions bar next to the top of the browser window. If I navigate to a website such as FamilySearch.org's Family Tree, I can search using the entries from any one of my ancestors. For example, here is the entry for my Grandfather Harold Morgan with an arrow pointing to the RootsSearch icon.

When I click on the icon, I get the following screen:

If I click on the More Sites link at the bottom of the listings, I get a long list of other available websites with sliding tabs to enable or disable searches in each website.

I could click down through the list and enable as many websites as I can handle.

Here are the results when I click on the RootsSearch icon for my grandfather:

Obviously, the list is longer than appears on the screen.

When I click on Chronicling America, the Library of Congress digital newspaper website, I got the following results:

The program is a little cranky and I had to click several times to get it set up to work, but when it works it is very impressive. Here is the article highlighted in the upper-left from the St. Johns Herald for 25 November 1915.

Sometimes I think I am going to drown in all the data out there to gather.