No you don't (know what you are talking about).
You are probably spot on for your wife's case. But there are dozens of different situations where the road to legitimisation and/or confirming rights is very different.
By the time we hit the 1983 Nationality Act there were three main categories of British Subject/Citizen...but probably at least a dozen sub-categories created by specific national circumstances.
At the same time, there were rules governing right of abode that were separate from citizenship criteria (qv. the creation of the category known as "British Citizen without right of abode")...and these might well operate differently according to country of origin.
For instance, Falkland Islanders got their very own special amendment in the Nationality Act.