The Persons and Correspondence Database of the Leibniz Edition makes accessible the Leibniz Complete Edition of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen as well as of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. It serves the four editorial centers in Berlin, Hannover, Münster and Potsdam as a working instrument and is constantly updated under the direction of the Leibniz Archive in Hannover. At the same time it is available internationally for Leibniz research and to the interested public. The Persons and Correspondence Database of the Leibniz Edition was conceived in the years 2013 and 2014 by the Leibniz Archive Hannover in cooperation with the TELOTA initiative of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.

This database had its origins in the digital accumulations of the persons and correspondent indexes of all hitherto published volumes of all the series of the Leibniz Edition. It offers in the first instance a two-fold search option:  

1. For persons mentioned in the volumes of the Leibniz Edition and recorded in the persons indexes, as well as
2. For Leibniz Correspondents; additionally all hitherto printed letters within the Academy Edition are listed.

Meanwhile (26th June 2023) 20.122 data records to correspondents and persons and 15.810 data records to letters have been made accessible in the Persons and Correspondence Database of the Leibniz Edition. Further data records for letters as well as for persons and correspondents are for the time being not visible for external users; they are being gradually published following editorial revision. In like fashion, the database is being constantly extended to include the entries in the persons and correspondents indexes of newly published volumes of the Academy Edition.

The database offers many research functions including the following:

• In so far as the volumes of the Leibniz Edition are available in digital form, a jump label leads from the linked data record to the corresponding position, or to the beginning of the volume available online.
• The data records about persons and correspondents often provide more information than that provided both in the printed and digital volume indexes. Search topics are e.g. relationships to other persons, political titles and functions, political and territorial affiliation, religious affiliation, religious order affiliation, education, profession, academic title, journeys, etc. Using the data field Beziehung (Relations) there exists for example the possibility of displaying the dependency network revealed in the Edition.
• For persons and correspondents name changes (for instance through marriage, rank advancement or the acceptance of political office) are taken into account and temporalized, that is assigned to a certain period.
• The data records for correspondents contain in addition biographical sketches in the form of individual Biogramme (Biographies).
• Targeted is the documentation of all particulars through citation of sources or reference works used.
• Numerous filter functions and combinations of search options are available for complex queries.
• Person and correspondent records are connected to prevailing standard data systems (national: GND; international: VIAF) through corresponding links.
• Data records can be printed in a clearly laid out form and exported in XML format.