Mike and Harriet, the lake there is a natural lake, Lake Champlain. New York has County Historians, most of them being a great help in finding information. New York waited until 1905 to start collecting information on births, marriages, and deaths, but it was not until about 1915 for them to really start collecting the information. For Rhode Island the people on the island of Rhode Island, with Newport and Portsmouth, records were kept beginning in 1636 when the island was purchased from the Indians. In 1743 the town of Middletown was formed from the northern section of the city of Newport. The rest of the state was the Colony of Providence Plantations, and even in the 1850s most of the rural interior was not collecting the records; Patricia In a message dated 1/27/2014 12:12:41 A.M. Central Standard Time, [email protected] writes: e) I notice from my map that a there is a lake on the western side of Franklin County, VT. So is this a natural or man made lake. If so, could they have gone to Church in New York State?