Q: Lost Cloud docs after upgrade to Yosemite

I put in a new SSD and upgraded my MBP to Yosemite. All good---except some docs I had written using Text Editor are now somehow just gone. Evidently these were saved to Documents in the Cloud, which is now just gone...??

In Snow Leopard, my last OS, my Text Edit offered an option to save and open docs either to/from On This Mac, or onto Cloud. Some I had saved to Cloud, they are now in some unknown domain of cyberspace, or annihilated.

Apple says iCloud Drive now doesn't offer saving of text docs written in Text Edit. The Text Edit app used to offer saving/opening docs from what it called "Cloud"---evidently that was Apple's Documents in the Cloud, which is now deprecated---?

Apple told me that "the docs might be saved in Pages format" on iCloud Drive, but I thought I would inquire here if anyone had any experience with this, it looks like once you upgrade to iCloud Drive there's no going back, so I'm afraid to upgrade and then find the docs still aren't there and have been annihilated.

How to find my previous Documents in the Cloud folder, now that I'm on Yosemite with a new hard drive?  I tried searching the old hard drive for .txt docs, it doesn't seem to see them. I have not searched Time Machine, but if I can't find the .txt files on the old hard drive, how would I find them in Time Machine?

I was a fool not to save the Documents in the Cloud docs separately---hoping someone can help me figure out if they still exist.

John in Houston