JQuery, find parent

$('#thisid').parents('li');
//                 ^ plural!

Note that if you only want the first <li> element in the ancestry, you should use closest():

$('#thisid').closest('li');

// `closest()` is equivalent to (but performs better than)
$('#thisid').parents('li').eq(0);
$('#thisid').parents('li').first();

• http://api.jquery.com/closest/
• http://api.jquery.com/parents/