git_branch_parent.sh

#!/usr/bin/env zsh

branch=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`

git show-branch | ack '\*' | ack -v "$branch" | head -n1 | sed 's/.*\[\(.*\)\].*/\1/' | sed 's/[\^~].*//'

# How it works:
# 1| Display a textual history of all commits.
# 2| Ancestors of the current commit are indicated
#    by a star. Filter out everything else.
# 3| Ignore all the commits in the current branch.
# 4| The first result will be the nearest ancestor branch.
#    Ignore the other results.
# 5| Branch names are displayed [in brackets]. Ignore 
#    everything outside the brackets, and the brackets.
# 6| Sometimes the branch name will include a ~2 or ^1 to
#    indicate how many commits are between the referenced
#    commit and the branch tip. We don't care. Ignore them.

vbc=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)
vbc_col=$(( $(git show-branch | grep '^[^\[]*\*' | head -1 | cut -d* -f1 | wc -c) - 1 )) 
swimming_lane_start_row=$(( $(git show-branch | grep -n "^[\-]*$" | cut -d: -f1) + 1 )) 
git show-branch | tail -n +$swimming_lane_start_row | grep -v "^[^\[]*\[$vbc" | grep "^.\{$vbc_col\}[^ ]" | head -n1 | sed 's/.*\[\(.*\)\].*/\1/' | sed 's/[\^~].*//'

Achieves the same ends, but uses a much safer approach that doesn't misbehave in a number of scenarios:

1. Parent branch's last commit is a merge, making the column show -
   not *
2. Commit message contains branch name
3. Commit message contains *

Obviously you can combine this into a single line if you wish.

Doesn't latest git support showing the parent branch in a native way?

Doesn't latest git support showing the parent branch in a native way?

found the following to work for me (limited testing)
git branch --create-reflog | head -n 1