María Teresalina Sánchez
Spanish missionary (1918-1947)
María Teresalina Sánchez, FMM, born as Joaquina de Zubiri Sánchez, (13 June 1918 – 27 October 1947) was a Spanish religious sister of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary who served in Kashmir. She was murdered on the grounds of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Baramulla by invading tribesmen during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. She is considered the first martyr in Jammu and Kashmir.
Early life
Sánchez was born on 13 June 1918, in the village of Sondika, Biscay, called Bidegain, into a family of seventeen children. While still an infant, her parents entrusted her upbringing to a community of the Daughters of the Cross in Bilbao. At eleven years of age she became a boarder in the teaching college in Orduña run by the Sisters of the Company of Mary, Our Lady, where she volunteered until the end of her studies at the Missionary Center of Bilbao. In 1936, at the age of 18, she thought of becoming a Carmelite nun, but doing so was impossible due to the Spanish Civil War then raging in Spain. She then began to work as a nurse in the municipal hospital of Bilbao, but in May 1937 she went into exile with her family as a result of the fight, settling in Cambo-les-Bains in southern France.
While there, Sánchez came to know the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, a religious congregation founded in India.
The public source identifies “María Teresalina Sánchez” as spanish missionary (1918-1947). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around María, Teresalina and Sánchez.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “María Teresalina Sánchez”, the useful work is to connect “spanish missionary (1918-1947)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17156022. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 1947, 1936 and 1937.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “María Teresalina Sánchez”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow María Teresalina Sánchez primary sources, María Teresalina Sánchez archive and María research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “María Teresalina Sánchez”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “María Teresalina Sánchez” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.