jQuery find() cannot find an element that is the top-level element?

If I have a jQuery object, how can I search for an element that may be the top-level element?

For example, if it contains the following markup,

<tr>
    <td></td>
    <td></td>
    <td><img class="delete-transfer" src="~/images/delete.png" title="Delete Transfer" role="button" /></td>
</tr>

find() will not work if I’m looking for 'tr', because find() only appears to scan the child elements.

Is there any way to find an element that might be the top level element?