[MHGinTN]

The lower court from which the Perkins v Elg case made it to the SCOTUS actually used the term natural born citizen for Miss. Elg, but the SCOTUS noted that an specifically refused to acknowledge that faulty assertion when they made their final runling. Interestingly, both the phrase native born and natural born show up in the ruling, but the Court chose to not use either in making a final ruling, resorting instead to simply 'American citizenship'.

[[ Fifth. The cross-petition of Miss Elg, upon which certiorari was granted in No. 455, is addressed to the part of the decree below which dismissed the bill of complaint as against the Secretary of State. The dismissal was upon the ground that the court would not undertake by mandamus to compel the issuance of a passport or control by means of a declaratory judgment the discretion of the Secretary of State. But the Secretary of State, according to the allegation of the bill of complaint, had refused to issue a passport to Miss Elg "solely on the ground that she had lost her native born American citizenship." The court below, properly recognizing the existence of an actual controversy with the defendants

Page 307 U. S. 350

(Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227), declared Miss Elg "to be a natural born citizen of the United States," and we think that the decree should include the Secretary of State as well as the other defendants. The decree in that sense would in no way interfere with the exercise of the Secretary's discretion with respect to the issue of a passport, but would simply preclude the denial of a passport on the sole ground that Miss Elg had lost her American citizenship. ]]

[El Gato]

My understanding is that Ms. Elg was born in the US of a naturalized citizen father and under the law at the time, when the father was naturalized, his wife was too. Could be wrong about that.

Of course the "natural born" issue was not germane to the case, so the Court did not get into it. She was definitely a Citizen, her parents could not unilaterally change that, nor could the Secretary of State.