Looking at the mptt example [http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/ModifiedPreorderTreeTraversal] it seemed a bit complicated for a normal user to understand. So i made my own, but considering i cannot group by makes aggregate functions hard (impossible?) to make this work nice, but magic-removal made it easier. But, here it is mostly . Use at will and own RISK, but if/ when you improve it i would like to see it made available. I attach the file and give a example here. Just add fields to this and in should work. Example using project name myproject and app name pages. {{{ from myproject.pages.models import Page tree = Page.manager.all() # get entire tree parent = Page.manager.get(pk=10) # get object you want to get the children of children = parent.get_children() # returns empty dict if no children are found parent = children[0].get_parent() # gets the parent }}} Preordered trees are great if done correctly, this is not.