Hi Eric,
Thank you for your continued interest and assistance. All the files and subfolders in the Document folder that have gone missing are extremely valuable to me both for business and family reasons, so I am happy to take small steps at a time so as to not endanger ultimate recovery of the files.
Sorry my responses are long but I am trying to make my explanations as clear as possible.
In Finder in the Sidebar under favorites there is a Documents folder that currently only contains the 39 files. Also under Favorites, if I click on my Home (grahamtaylor) folder there is a Documents folder listed and it contains the same 39 files. Also under Devices if I click on Macintosh HD > Users > Home (grahamtaylor) folder there is a Documents folder with the same 39 files, so I think this Document folder is one and the same, just accessed 3 different ways.
I have also noticed under Users there is another folder called grahamtaylor1 and within that folder there is another documents folder with a red minus sign in the bottom corner. I tried clicking on this folder and got the message "The folder "Documents" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents". Could this folder contain all my missing files and if so how do I access it? I have included a screen shot to illustrate what I am trying to explain.
In answer to your question about searching for Documents using the search function when in Time Machine. With Documents selected in Finder and on entering Time Machine there is one folder with the 39 files. Alternatively, if I select my home (grahamtaylor) folder and search for documents it finds about 125 Documents folders, most of which are empty and appear to be associated with various programs. There is, of course, the folder containing the 39 files listed.
Finally do you think if I removed the 39 files and saved them elsewhere, so the Documents folder was empty, then selected the folder in Finder and entered Time Machine chose a time date in the past and tried to Restore it might work?
Once again thanks for your input, it is really appreciated.
Regards,
Graham