Magdalena Dircks was born about 1636 on the Vigne bouwerie (farm), a little north of Wall Street. In the summer of 1638 her family moved to a nearby house at 125 Pearl Street, just south of Wall Street along the East River. By 1645 they had sold this house and moved further up Pearl Street to Smit's Vly. There they built and lived in several houses, on the East River flats just north of Maiden Lane. (It is recorded that Sergeant [and Fire Warden] Daniel Litschoe bought the first Pearl Street house in 1648 to be converted into a tavern, and in 1651 traded this building to begin a new tavern in the old Vigne house after the death of Magdalena's grandmother's second husband, Jan Jansen Damen.) Magdalena married Cornelius Hendrickson Van Dort in the early 1650's. He was also known as "Cornelius Caper" or "Kees de Caper" in reference to his trade as a sailor. He was also allegedly a privateer (a pirate commissioned by a government to capture foreign ships), as "caper" was another term for pirate. It is known that he was in the boat-building business as well. During a period when tensions rose with the British colonies, he constructed cannon mounts for Fort Amsterdam and refurbished one of the government's small ships in preparation for possible war. Van Dort was known as a doer and a darer. By his industriousness he took his young family out of relative poverty and moved them into their own home on Slyck Steght (now South William Street). He was the only sailor brave enough to venture (for a reward) into the treacherous whirlpool of Hellgate to retrieve Thomas Young's stranded ketch. He was not in the government militia, apparently, as he did not go along with Peter Stuyvesant's 600-man army to drive the Swedes out of their Delaware colony in the summer of 1655. At dawn on the 15th of September, while this army was gone, a fleet of 64 Indian canoes showed up at Manhattan Island. These Indians had been at peace with the colonists for nearly ten years, with a few exceptions. Many of them were known to the Dutch settlers through long-standing trade and social contacts.

The Indians disembarked and began roaming through the settlement, saying they were looking for members of a tribe with whom they were at war. To the men remaining on the island, it appeared as though the Indians knew Stuyvesant was gone and that it was an opportune time to wipe out the Dutch settlement. A number of self-appointed home guardsmen, including Cornelius Hendricksen and led by Magdalena's uncle, Cornelius Van Tienhoven, went to the shore to order the Indians to remove themselves to nearby Governor's Island. The Indians appeared to be complying, but as their canoes pulled away a number of them turned and let loose a fusillade of arrows and musket balls. Three of the guardsmen were hit. Magdalena's husband was carried to his house on Slyck Steght, either dead or dying. This was the opening round of the war of 1655. Within the next few weeks, most of the New Netherland settlement was burned or looted, a hundred colonists were killed and another 150 were captured for ransom.

Before Hendricksen's death, he and Magdalena had one daughter, Maria Cornelis. Magdalena was now without means and unable to support her daughter. She raised funds using her house and property (apparently spared in the war) as collateral, and pledged the money to the orphan court for raising the girl as an orphan. The court then authorized Magdalena's aunt and uncle, Maria (Vigne) and Abraham Ver Planck, to raise Maria Cornelis as their ward.

Magdalena married Harmans Hendricksen Rosenkranz two years later, in February 1657. He was born in 1612, making him 24 years older than her.

The day of their wedding, with Magdalena probably drinking beer or wine, was marked by a foretelling incident. She and her younger sister Sarah were passing by Fire Warden Litschoe at his tavern (the old Vigne house north of Wall Street). Together they sang out mockingly, "There is the chimney sweep in the door, his chimney is well-swept." On the first day of March, 1657, the two young ladies were called into court for "presuming to insult the Fire-Wardens of the city on the public highway and to make a street riot." It is reported that Magdalena's new husband was ashamed of her and that she had to defend herself alone. In her defense, she claimed she and her sister Sarah had only called him a "chimney sweep" - which they always called him when he came to inspect their chimney. She was fined two Dutch pounds for insulting a city official.

Things didn't get any better that year, either for her reputation or that of her extended family in New Amsterdam. Her father, Dirck, was sued in court for stabbing Jan de Perie in a knife fight that arose over a game of dice. Her uncle, Van Tienhoven, had mysteriously disappeared while pending a court of inquiry into his malfeasance in office. Her uncle Jan Vigne had been denied reappointment as a city magistrate, and her other uncle Abraham Ver Planck had nearly been banished from the colony for insulting and threatening a burgomaster. Magdalena and Harmans owned a tavern, probably named "The Flying Angel." Their tavern was, more likely than not, one of the more notorious establishments in the city, and "The Flying Angel" fittingly became her nickname. Magdalena was notified, within about six weeks after her "street riot" trial, that Peter Stuyvesant was issuing her the "yellow ticket" for deportation to Holland later that year. One other woman, Geertje Jacobs, faced the same fate for gossiping that the blacksmith's wife and another man had been "discovered in something disgraceful." [Deportation and banishment were common forms of punishment in those days. Another woman was sent to Holland after she offended public decency by lifting her dress and exposing her backside to another woman while arguing in the street.]

Harmans prepared for the deportation by securing a discharge from the army on April 17th, and selling Magdalena's Slyck Stegh house to Joost Goderis on August 13th. The deportation occurred not long after October 22, 1657, the date of Peter Stuyvesant's letter to the Dutch West India Company officials explaining the reasons for the deportations. Two ships, the Waegh and the Hoop, made the voyage together and transported the women across the Atlantic. They were delayed at an English port through the winter and did not arrive in Holland until March of 1658. It is not clear whether Harmans went with Magdalene or sailed on a later ship, but he was in Amsterdam by June of 1658.

The Dutch West India Company officials, having had a few months to get acquainted with Magdalene, wrote back to Peter Stuyvesant on May 20, 1658, "The two women of bad reputation, Magdalena Dircks and Geertje Jacobs, whom you sent back here on account of their dissolute life, shall not again receive our permission to return to New Netherland, and if they shall come there again by deceitful practices or under a false name, you may punish them, as they deserve it."

The Company had a change of heart in just a few weeks, perhaps due to Harman's intervention and long record as a Company soldier, because on June 13th they decided that Harman Hendricksen and Magdalena Dircks, "alias the Flying Angel," could return to New Netherland - provided that they did not keep a tavern or sell intoxicants. The passenger list of the ship Bruynvisch in late June 1658 show that "Harman Dircksen from Norway with wife and child" sailed from Holland to New Amsterdam. Magdalena must have been pregnant when she was deported. Her son, Alexander, was most likely born while she was in exile - either in England by March of 1658, or in Holland between March and June of 1658.

Despite these troubles with the Indians, there were reports that Harmans and Magdalena were in the business of selling them liquor. That particular business was widespread along the Hudson, although both the Dutch and the Indian nations tried to stop it.

Her reputation for trouble did not stop there. On January 1, 1667, she was thrown in the guardhouse. This was soon after the English captured New York. There was an Englishman, Captain Brodhead, who was much hated by the Dutch. The report is that he intruded on their New Years Eve party, for which she insulted him and made some unpleasant comments about his sister. It's said he did not appreciate the comments about his sister's reputation, and threw a beer in Magdalena's direction. It's also reported that Magdalena "bathed his face in New Year's ale." [Brodhead once pulled his sword on a storekeeper's wife who followed and insulted him, after he drank her liquor and refused to pay, threatening he would kill her if not for the fact she was pregnant.] Magdalena's experience with the courts was not always in the role of defendant. In October 1667 she accused Annetje Adriaens of assault. In 1671 she accused Anna Mattys of slander, and in 1673 she sued Jan Pieterson for the same offense.

Their daughter Sarah's will, made in January 1726, showed that Magdalena was still alive and nearly 90 years old. She died at some time after June 17, 1726, also in Rochester. 555