Ah, so their advice was just to read it until either the quest is discovered or until it's been so long that it's probably not going to happen (the implication then being that it already has)? Ok, still not an answer I was hoping for.

Other research tasks like the mineral scanner, etc. show progress while the job is being performed, and so I checked the pawn and the item while it was being read when my question first occurred to me. I did not check the full-detail screen for the map, however (if that's what you were suggesting). I'm away from my computer this week, but I'll try that and then searching for the item in the save file.