Find closest previous element jQuery

Question

I am wanting something similar to this person, except the element I want to match might not be a direct sibling.

If I had this HTML, for example,

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Answer 1

var link = $("#me").closest(":has(h3 span b)").find('h3 span b');

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/e27r8/

This uses the closest()[docs] method to get the first ancestor that has a nested h3 span b, then does a .find().

Of course you could have multiple matches.

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Otherwise, you're looking at doing a more direct traversal.

var link = $("#me").closest("h3 + div").prev().find('span b');

edit: This one works with your updated HTML.

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/e27r8/2/

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EDIT: Updated to deal with updated question.

var link = $("#me").closest("h3 + *").prev().find('span b');

This makes the targeted element for .closest() generic, so that even if there is no parent, it will still work.

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/e27r8/4/