By calculating genetic distance, and using rate of change from molecular clock, researchers can estimate when two lineages diverged

It is true that by calculating genetic distance, and using rate of change from molecular clock, researchers can estimate when two lineages diverged.

To add, genetic distance is the term used to describe the number of differences or mutations between two sets of Y-chromosome DNA or mitochondrial DNA test results. Having zero genetic distance equates to having an exact match and that there’s no differences in the two results presented. A lot of people mistakenly assume that genetic distance is the number of generations to a common ancestor, but that is NOT AT ALL what genetic distance means. Genetic distance can also be identified by how many a particular match’s mutation difference to the participant.