First of all... the question should not read "How does one transfers ... ". The correct word is 'traverse' .. meaning to 'move through' the DOM. Without selecting elements by an ID, there is also getElementByTagName or getElementByClassName. From there, childNodes and NextSibling are used to further 'traverse' through the DOM. good luck finding people who know how to do that right, with or without a library like jQuery.