Hierarchy of instances

I was wondering, sometimes i get confused from which point in a movieclip to indentify another movie clip. I was wondering if this would work

lets say i have a series of movieclips with these instances in each other
mc being the top most movieclip

mc>mc1>mc2>mc3>mc4

now lets say my code is in mc4 and i want to indentify mc1. Could i do this?


_root.mc.mc1

I have no idea how to use the “parent” reference tag from that deep within a movie clip. Is “_root” a good method to use? Will it work? even though its being stated from with that movieclip?