diff --git a/pmd/src/net/sourceforge/pmd/ast/SimpleNode.java b/pmd/src/net/sourceforge/pmd/ast/SimpleNode.java
index f4853d4af6..3483510418 100644
--- a/pmd/src/net/sourceforge/pmd/ast/SimpleNode.java
+++ b/pmd/src/net/sourceforge/pmd/ast/SimpleNode.java
@@ -96,6 +96,41 @@ public class SimpleNode implements Node {
         return endColumn;
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Traverses up the tree to find the first parent instance of type parentType
+     * @param parentType class which you want to find.
+     * @return Node of type parentType.  Returns null if none found.
+     */
+    public Node getFirstParentOfType(Class parentType) {
+      Node parentNode = jjtGetParent();
+
+      while (parentNode != null && parentNode.getClass() != parentType) {
+        parentNode = parentNode.jjtGetParent();
+      }
+
+      return parentNode;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Traverses up the tree to find all of the parent instances of type parentType
+     * @param parentType classes which you want to find.
+     * @return List of parentType instances found.
+     */
+    public List getParentsOfType(Class parentType) {
+      List parents = new ArrayList();
+      Node parentNode = jjtGetParent();
+
+      while (parentNode != null) {
+        if (parentNode.getClass() == parentType) {
+          parents.add(parentNode);
+        }
+
+        parentNode = parentNode.jjtGetParent();
+      }
+
+      return parents;
+    }
+
     public List findChildrenOfType(Class targetType) {
         List list = new ArrayList();
         findChildrenOfType(targetType, list);
diff --git a/pmd/xdocs/credits.xml b/pmd/xdocs/credits.xml
index 22e0359ee3..31d1ca7d2a 100644
--- a/pmd/xdocs/credits.xml
+++ b/pmd/xdocs/credits.xml
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@
         </subsection>
         <subsection name="Contributors">
         <ul>
+            <li>Jeff Anderson - some node finding utility code</li>
             <li>Boris Gruschko - regression test suites, nifty AST/XPath viewer</li>
             <li>Jeff Epstein - put together the TextPad integration </li>
             <li>Trevor Harmon - rewrote XSLT script</li>