Swap(p) Emigrations Worldwide

SWAP(P) EMIGRATIONS WORLDWIDE

It seems that our family has always been a wandering clan. I used to think that the only Swap(p)s in the world were those who came to America, joined the Mormon Church, and settled Southern Utah and Southern Nevada (and one little town in the mountains of New Mexico). But after putting together the Worldwide Swap(p) Family Directory, I began to realize there were more groups of Swap(p)s than I had imagined.

This page is still under construction and will have more details soon, but following is a brief list of the emigrations I have learned about:

Please write to me if you can add or correct details in these stories.

Early history of the Swap(p)s in Scotland

The Swap(p)s of Northern England

The Mormon Swapps of Utah and Nevada (1821)

The Massachusetts and New York Swaps (1821)

The Swaps of Western Washington

The Swapps of Western Washington (early 1900s)

The Swaps of Minnesota and North Dakota

The Swaps of Florida and Louisiana

A new emigration of Swap descendants to Canada

The Swaps of New Zealand and Australia

A Swapp Family on Antigua in the Carribean

A Swapp Family in Tahiti

Early history of the Swap(p)s in Scotland

The meaning and origin of the name Swap(p) is unknown. At least one genealogist surmised it could have come from a Schwappe who came to Great Britain from France with William the Conqueror around A.D. 1060. It also seems like it could be related to the Germanic Schwabe (people who come from Swabia, behind the Black Forest) or the Slavic Svoboda (meaning "free"). But for all we know, the name originated in Scotland. Records of Swap(p)s in Scotland go as far back as 1600, so we know they lived in Scotland for at least a couple hundred years before the family started wandering the globe. And there are Swap(p)s still living today in the cities of Scotland.

The Swap(p)s of Northern England

We know there are Swap(p)s living in Northern England, especially in the areas around Yorkshire. It would seem natural that the industries of Leeds and Manchester might have drawn Scots down to that part of England, which is not too far from the Scottish border. It is not known when they first went to England. It would be interesting to find out if they still maintain any Scottish accent or customs.

The Mormon Swapps of Utah and Nevada (1821)

It seems the Swap(p) Family had been concentrated in Montrose, Angusshire and in Old Machar, Aberdeen, Scotland until 1776, when William Swap married Janet Gilmour, who was from Dunterly, Neilston, Renfrewshire. Their 5th child, also a William, was born 19 years into their marriage.

This William Swap was born in Busby, Renfrewshire, and married Nancy Agnes Hill in 1817 in Barony Parish, Glasgow, where she was from. It's unclear whether or not they already had a son named John when they made the journey in 1821 to a new life in British North America. But it is clear that she was pregnant on the long sea voyage that Summer of 1820. They probably landed at Québec City and took a steamer up the river to the Island of Montréal to a port called Lachine. This is where it is recorded that her son William Swapp, Jr. was born. One record says his brother John was born in Canada, so he must have been born in 1822.

William and Nancy then continued their travels up to a new area being settled by Scottish immigrants and helped to carve out the Township of Lanark (in today's Lanark County, Ontario) from the wilderness. But when their baby William was only 5 years old, his father left to seek employment in the factories of New England. Apparently, he was not cut out to be a farmer. Soon thereafter, Nancy died, and little William was left pretty much an orphan. He was raised by a Hill Family. (His mother had been a Hill, and his future wife was also a Hill.) From this point, we know nothing about his brother John, except that a John F. Swap died in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1866.

In 1835, the Hill Family, which by then consisted of several adult children and their families, moved to Tosorontio and Essa Townships in Simcoe County, north of Toronto. There they found better land to work with. Around 1840, they met missionaries of the LDS Church, and the entire family was baptized in two separate sessions six months apart. William Swapp was not baptized until 1843.

The Hill Family members who had joined the LDS Church moved in the Summer of 1842 to be with the main group of Mormons in Nauvoo, Illinois. By 1845, William Swapp had also joined the LDS Church and was in Nauvoo, where he married Elizabeth Hill. This marriage was solemnized in January 1846 in the newly completed Mormon temple in Nauvoo.

Very soon after their marriage, the Saints were pushed out of Nauvoo by their enemies. They had to leave their beautiful city and temple behind. Many, including the Hill and the Swapp Families, spent several years in Iowa on the banks of the Missouri River before they had gathered the means to continue on to Utah. Brigham Young and the first Latter-day Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in the summer of 1847, and the Hills and the Swapps arrived there four years later in 1851.

But this is not the end of their emigration saga. After settling with other Scottish Saints in Mill Creek near the mountains in Salt Lake City, having several children, they probably thought they were finally home. But 10 years after their arrival in Utah, the Prophet called them on a mission to settle the red-dust desert country of St. George, in the southwestern corner of Utah. This they did, and then in 1867, they were called to settle an even more foreboding desert in Moapa Valley, Nevada, near the confluence of the Virgin and the Colorado Rivers. (That part of the valley where they settled is now likely under the waters of Lake Mead.) They had only been there for 3 years when the settlement was abandoned. (Interestingly enough, one of their sons returned 20 years later, and family members still live in Overton, Nevada.)

In 1870, the final chapter of their life began. The Saints left Moapa Valley and re-settled Glendale in Long Valley, Utah. William worked with the Church's dairy cattle, and in July 1876, he died at the age of 55 after was gored by one of them.

In 1883, three of their children's families along with the widow Elizabeth settled a small valley in the mountains just east of the Arizona-New Mexico border called Luna Valley. After a few years, only their youngest son remained there, and his descendants still live there today.

Elizabeth returned to Glendale, Utah after about a year in New Mexico, and after serving her fellowmen faithfully, she died there in 1891 at the age of 72. William & Elizabeth Swapp are both buried in the Glendale Cemetery, and their many descendants still live in the places in Southern Nevada, Southern Utah, and Western New Mexico where they were pioneers.

The Massachusetts and New York Swaps

This group of Swaps are descended from the same William Swap who emigrated to Canada in 1820 and whose son joined the Mormon Church and settled several towns in Utah and Nevada.

Late in 1824, William Swap left his wife and son(s) in Canada to seek employment in the United States. His first wife died soon thereafter, and he never returned to Canada, as far as we know. In fact, when he re-married and had more children in New England, it appears he never mentioned the Canada settlement to his son William Henry Swap, because when William Swapp, Jr. in St. George, Utah wrote to his half-brother in 1871, long after their father's death, the New England William said he had never heard of his father's life in Canada.

William Swap re-married in 1834 in Thompson, Connecticut and began his new life. He and Almira Leach Swap then had 5 children of their own. They lived in Thompson, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island and then finally settled about 1839 in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on the northeastern coast of the commonwealth, near the border with New Hampshire. He applied there for U.S. citizenship in 1840. He worked in a steam mill in Newburyport, which shut down for his funeral when he died in 1847 at the age of 51. His youngest child was only 3 years old. At least two of his children, Bradford and William, traveled the world's oceans. Bradford died at the age of 28 in Burma, and William died at the age of 47 in Manila, in the Philippines.

There are still Swaps living in that part of Massachusetts, and I assume the Swaps in New York are also part of this family.