Thunderbird e-mail problem

[GaryT]

Earlier this year I reinstalled Ubuntu and for email simply located the
backed up T-bird files in an appropriate directory. When T-bird was
loaded it adopted the files and beauty, all e-mail was restored.

Recently I did it again, BUT THE DEFAULT T-BIRD was a new version.
It didn't adopt the old files. Apparently if you load it over the old
version the files are adopted and the old version executables are
deleted, but... obviously you have to know that in advance.

Does anyone know of a utility to manually convert the files from ver
2.0.0.19 to version 2.0.0.22?

OR

where to find the earlier version so that I can at least salvage all the
family photos that have arrived attached to messages.

Help on the Mozilla pages is limited.

TIA
GT