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http://archive.org/stream/etymologicaldict00kluguoft
https://indo-european.info/pokorny-etymological-dictionary/index.htm
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/oi_cleasbyvigfusson_about.html
http://www.bosworthtoller.com/

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Since MHG sweimen has no descendant in standard German (it may survive in a different branch of High German), the comparative method is helpful. Cleasby, Pokorny, Kluge et al are all a bit dated and don't always agree, but there's not much else available for High German. Much of the OHG corpus is a different dialect to the precursor of standard German or the MHG corpus anyway, so it can be a bit of a strain finding a cognate Middle or Old High German word that resembles a modern word semantically, and surnames may come from a dialect that isn't well represented in a German-English or even a thorough German dictionary.

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Schwemm with double mm should be an ablaut grade of schwimmen, probably with umlaut (according to Kluge it's the factitive, i.e. causative — OE has swemman, Danish svømme), but with surnames that can't be relied on, and I don't know how the vowel would vary with different dialects (and some dialects seem to use a different orthography than standard German for the same phonemes).

This message was edited 7/22/2018, 6:39 AM