Right. They had to because their parents were not born in America either. Unlike Ted Cruz. :)
Parent in Ted’s case. Good enough. :)
No they had to because they were not Natural Born Citizens of the US. And Neither is Cruz.
What matters is the citizenship they had to pass on to their children when their children were born.
This is about 'citizenship', not about one's nationality or the family's ancestral home or ancestral nationality.
Think about it. It took a few years for the first children born of the first citizens in this new country to reach the age of eligibility to be POTUS.
The exception clause legally allowed non-Natural born citizens (as there weren't any NBCs at that time, only citizens) to be POTUS until we had made some NBCs and they were old enough to be president.