The 42-year-old, who made his name in hit Australian soap Neighbours before launching a successful music career, found out that his maternal great-great-great grandfather was deported from the UK to Tasmania for 10 years' hard labour for receiving stolen goods.

DISCOVERY: A young Jason Donovan with his great grandmother Eileen Lyons

Joseph Lyons, who was raised in Whitechapel in the heart of London's East End Jewish community, worked on the famous Petticoat Lane as a scrap and junk metal merchant.

But he was arrested in August 1841 and sent to Tasmania, where he was taken under the wing of the Australian island's small Jewish community.

Joseph was set free after three years and sent for his wife Rosetta from England.

They had a son Simeon, Jason's great-great grandfather, and he in turn had a daughter, Eileen, Jason's great grandmother.

A Melbourne newspaper called her a Jewess, but Jason was not able to establish whether she was of the faith.

If she was, it would make Donovan Jewish too.