Hi, Ginger, and welcome aBoard. Ooh, when Branshea gets back from her trip, she'll be all over this! What you said is backed up:
swerve
c.1225, "to depart, make off;" c.1330, "to turn aside, deviate from a straight course," probably from O.E. sweorfan "to rub, scour, file" (but sense development is difficult to trace), from P.Gmc. *swerbanan (cf O.N. sverfa "to scour, file," O.S. swebran "to wipe off"), from PIE base *swerbh-. Cognate words in other Gmc. languages (cf. O.Fris. swerva "to creep," M.Du. swerven "to rove, stray") suggests the sense of "go off, turn aside" may have existed in O.E., though unrecorded. The noun is recorded from 1741.
From: Online Etymology Dictionary