Intrigued by the supposed connection between these four manuscripts, Ruby Reid Thompson, archivist at the University of Cambridge, undertook a thorough examination of all four manuscripts, physically examining every one of their over 2,200 pages, including a detailed look at three of the manuscripts' watermarks (the custodians of the Fitzwilliam Museum did not permit watermark tracings of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book). In two articles (which are a preparation for her doctoral dissertation), Thompson provided an extensively researched historiography of how Tregian's name became so closely associated with music and why it persists despite lack of evidence and presentation of new information.